ICE Storm – Dallas December 6, 2013

When I finished the painting --  my  first “commission” --  I wondered if  its subject matter might be prescient, given the weather forecasts. For, Dallas forecasts are not always reliable.  This time, though, the weather forecast was right!  Sleet and rain started falling early Thursday evening – resembling my modest painting. 

First Commission

So began another Texas weather adventure, from which I enjoy a reprieve as I write.

A chilly damp night seemed a perfect time to sample the chicken tomatillo tamales, and Whole Foods’ chili that I bought in anticipation of the possible coming cold weather. When its vestiges awoke me about 3:30 AM -- it was just in time to hear a piercing short “beep” erupt from the kitchen.

What in the world . . . oh no! The carbon monoxide alert! Quickly checking the gas connector to the fireplace, and then the stove – before it started shouting -- we then remembered it had a battery back up, and changed out the battery, amidst its yelps.  Could a power outage have drained it of life?

As we crawled back to bed, the lights went out, along with the furnace; finding flashlights took just enough time for the lights to recycle on and off – on, and once again all was dark, except for a weird green light we saw from the kitchen window that flashed across the sky—an exploding transformer. Quickly we headed to bed, adding a wool blanket for good measure – this could be a bummer!

Then, suddenly, Doug popped up from bed, suited up in hat, gloves, leather coat and shoes to venture out and turn off the automatic sprinkler, which was set to water next morning. Since, they predicted an accumulation of ice approximately .1 inches, we didn’t need to add to that!

We finally settled own, hoping with the morning sun, we might enjoy a reprieve.

Friday morning – no reprieve.

The cars were caked in ice, and our cedar tree was bent low, and rested on Doug’s car, limiting any chance of a quick getaway – as if driving any where would have been smart, given the thick ice coating on all the roads! 

The blessing of natural gas – a stove top and gas logs – kept us steady:  We boiled water for coffee; filing our thermos with life supporting caffeine, we assessed our options before a cheery fire. The well-charged smart phones filed in details the lifeless TV and radio could not. So, too, did the old transistor radio, I brought from Maryland. It might be a long day – and driving conditions meant having to decline kind invitations from family to bunk with them!

Reluctant to let food in the refrigerator go bad, I cooked up a few meals on our stove's gas burners, storing them in the back of my frozen car.  I just kept telling myself – keep cooking and don’t turn on the burners until you light that match!

I found several fat candles; their cheery light would seem brighter if the lights weren’t on by nightfall. And they did, because come nightfall the only lights were the neighbors’ across the street!    Odd, how power grids work . . .  

As the temperature outside the house fell from 30 to 18, the temperature inside fell too. We added more layers of clothing.  We ate dinner by the fire, eating fast, as the chilly air dissipated the stew’s warmth.  I have not done dishes as fast as I did that night, since I was kid! We played Scrabble by candlelight. That wasn’t as much fun as it sounds. (I won by five points, though.) 

By nine, there was not much else to do but hunker down in front of the fire, sleep and hope the power grid would operate soon. The power returned about 1:00 AM.  When the light and heat waked us, it surprised me – I didn’t know just how cold we had been!    

We are still in a deep freeze and housebound for the time being,but happy and warm. The prospect of more days of freezing weather has one bright spot, hopefully: those deadly West Nile mosquitoes that flourished in several recent mild winters will be gone. This adventure also is a prod, silencing any grumbling.  Some folks here may not get power on until Monday!

Get ready if you are in the path of this wintry blast!

And please remember: Some people have no home; much less, the hope of heat and light and extra layers of socks and sweaters – they and the people who serve them need our help.  

The best way to do ourselves good is to be doing good to others; the best way to gather is to scatter. ~ Thomas Brooks

 Dear brothers,  . . .

If you have a friend who is in need of food and clothing,  and you say to him, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat hearty,” and then don’t give him clothes or food, what good does that do?  . . . ~ James 2:14-26 (TLB)

Marking the Advent of Advent

Mose on Mt Pisgah

 Hello! I have edited  reposted this at the following link -- please stop by!

http://lettinggoandholdingtight.com/marking-advent-advent/

Anticipation

Winter weather threats of sleet, or snow in Dallas kept the weathermen worried, and they had non-stop advisories for the past several days; forecasts were grim – freezing stuff would arrive by Thursday evening. No, the stuff will be here Friday morning; well, maybe not until Saturday evening.  Better prepare, the rain and freezing slush will affect churchgoers Sunday morning! Oops, we meant Sunday night. Or, Maybe Monday will be the day of bad weather. Oh, wait: temperatures are rising and the sun should appear this afternoon.

Oh! Sun’s out!

I am exhausted, worrying about being house bound and out of power because that’s what freezing rain and snow can do in Dallas.  

Anticipation can wear a girl out.

Then, a friend asked if I realized, that this time next month, Christmas would be in full swing.

Well, of course I knew December 25 was coming . . . just not so soon.

Christmas – the celebration by His followers of the conviction and hope that God entered human history, born of a virgin, to die in our place, paying the cost of all our sins, so we might love life without fear of disaster, disease or death. (Help Thou my unbelief!)  Unfortunately this toxic trio is still at it --  sowing seeds of apprehension deep within me, reminding me of Carly Simon’s lament -

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasing after some finer day. Anticipation

Anticipation can wear a girl out.

But, this year I welcome it, even tough I am unprepared.   Like those non-stop weather advisories, the lights around Dallas are starting to twinkle – the stores filled with holiday hoopla urge me to be ready – buy one more thing: something big is coming!  But now, anticipation need not wear this old girl out.

As my own expiration date looms closer, as news of the world presses in, as some dear  folks I know are deeply hurting, today I cranked up the Christmas music -- especially the great processional we sing the first Sunday in Advent:

. . . O come, Thou Rod of Jesse's stem,

from ev'ry foe deliver them

that trust Thy mighty power to save,

and give them vict'ry o'er the grave ... (words: O Come, O Come Emanuel)

Anticipation . . .  

Welcome to the world’s celebration of “Christmas!” Many may miss its warning and wonder – preferring the lights, the music, the “magic . . .” (I may miss it too if I don’t get it together!) But right now, for you gentle reader, here’s the best advisory I can offer: 

For unto to us a child is born . . . Isaiah 9

 Sing with me! And see if this doesn’t remedy your holiday anxieties!

“Christ is the foundation but the well is deep, and thou must get forth this water before thou canst be refreshed by it.” (A quote from Richard Baxter, cited in A Book of Days for Christians by Richardson Wright, November 25)

A Half-Century Later --

My Recollections of November 22 1963

 Has moved! Please click through to http://autumns-garden.com/account-november-22-1963/

Covering the UNCOVERED – Uncovering the COVERED

 

Ms. Pelosi was right when she said we’d find out what’s in it when Congress passes the Affordable Care Act. I still don’t know; 2000+ pages is a lot to read.  But what I do know, just by listening to the talking heads, something fundamental has changed since March 23, 2010.

The President signed the law Congress passed requiring us to do something they exempted themselves from doing. And they put the I.R.S. in charge to see we all buy what Congress is selling.  Nobody, though, realized that the NSA could read our emails and listen to what we thought about it all.     

Someone who has read the new law, Denny Weinberg, described it as an iceberg, of which we have just seen the tip: 

  . . . It is a complex array of vaguely related mechanisms, assumptions about motivations and consequences of both harsh and subtle incentives and penalties. Many details are dependent on unknown decisions and solutions that would be determined in future months and years. Every part of the act is dependent upon the perfectly performing assumptions of every other part of the act. There has likely never been a law with so many interdependencies and unproven dynamics . . . The Future of American Medical Care

Icebergs, according to recent documentary, begin with one snowflake. (PBS: The Iceberg that Sank the Titanic) In time, an accumulation of flakes grows into an ice mountain whose hidden depths can destroy ships that sail too close. Pride, inexperience and poor planning also helped sink a ship that was thought to be unsinkable.  (Why the Titanic Sank)

I believe we are sailing now through dark waters, and coming close to a new giant “program,” whose underpinnings few of us can clearly apprehend. And I am afraid we can’t just change ships, hoping for smoother sailing.

Trying to “fix” the problems the Affordable Care Act has generated seems like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic – I believe health insurance, as we have known it, has collided with economic, social and legal realities that are powerful as that iceberg’s deep web that gouged the side of the Titanic. I feel like a survivor of such a shipwreck may have felt waiting for rescue – waiting, hoping, and trusting help is on the way for each of us.

The rescue boats, however, may not be the kind we had anticipated.  Government-mandated life-boats may have unexpected rules and practices.

It’s disheartening though to listen to the explanations of how and why the roll-out of website has only enrolled 100,000 people, and the Affordable Care Act  has taken away the coverage of 5 million Americans.  It’s scary . . . not having the wherewithal to pay for healthcare always has been.

An Answer to Fear: Idol Worship -Me?

365th Post

After four years – this is makes an equivalent of one year’s reading. 

When I started writing, I wondered how I would make a transition from Maryland to Texas. Some costs have been dear; some benefits have been super.  I have made friends, done things, seen things that are flat out wonderful. But, I know I am missing other people and times that may never come again.  

A Wordless Evangelist*

We’ve been through four Texas summers – and now five autumns.  Only this week are the leaves changing colors, and the mums in the garden, blooming. Only this week did several of the plants shrivel and fade.  By Friday, the geraniums and impatience will go if the nights are as cold as predicted.    The first year I did little to prepare the beds for “rest.” Each year, a bit more – and this year, I’ve done the most.  It will be interesting to see if the jasmine I re-potted will survive.  I am saving the seeds from the black-eyed Susans and bachelor buttons.  

I even have plans for next March, God willing. I want to dig up a small bed on the west side of the house that has not done well in the heat and dryness, and plant an assortment of Texas flowers.  The afternoon sun is fierce – but the gardening book suggests a few hardy types can handle it. 

And I have learned a few more things writing about this move, the house and yard:

I have learned how to add my own photos.

I learned briefer is better than clever.

I see that two pieces still get the most attention; whether it was the artwork, or content, I can’t tell.       

·      Life is Messy

·      What Do You Do When Your Family Disappoints You?

The backyard here has been as real a classroom, as the ones I had in Maryland – putzing around, I have time to think about mistakes made, and lessons learned . . . which enabled me to describe some experiences, that may help a reader avoid my mistakes.

   

Being messy – careless with belongings and relationships – is a quality of self-centeredness.

            I hate falling out with people I love; I hate being the reason they are mad, too.

Writing this humble blog is like my planning to dig up that western strip of garden – I am learning what works, and what has to go; I may even have time to get some plants into my life, like the ones I hope to plant in the spring, ones that will stand up to hard times.  (The Beatitudes)

Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused. --Unknown 

 *A Wordless Evangelist

Liberated by Mustard Barbecue Sauce

Who knew that so much mustard could be a tasty ingredient in a barbecue sauce?

I should have.

I spent many summers in South Carolina as a child, and then visiting when my folks lived in my father’s hometown for a decade. However, of all the distinctly southern traditions, they passed on to me, barbecue was not one of them. For them, and me, it was an acquired taste – we never ate “barbecue” in Baltimore. (Unless you call grilling hamburgers and hot-dogs outside, “barbecue.”)

Not until I married a Texan, and came to his hometown did I realize how deprived I had been!  Maybe it’s the smoky flavor that addicts a soul, maybe it’s the fat content – or maybe it’s buttered, toasted rolls soaking up all that sauce, but I can’t go long without bit o’ barbecue.

So, when our son-in-law traveled to Greenville, SC, (a stone’s throw from my parents’ former dwelling) and knowing my keenness for all things barbecue, he thought I surely must have sampled South Carolina mustard sauce barbecue.

Never heard of it!

My parents learned to eat barbecue when they lived in South Carolina – buying it from the restaurants. They even learned the differences between North and South Carolinian barbecue – but never tried cooking it themselves, assuming barbecue was too complex a culinary endeavor. (South Carolina's BBQ history) Alas, I too came to believe that making a passable barbecue was beyond me – even with all the sauces and spices now at my disposal.  

But a few good recipes, from friends, a slow cooker, a bit of exotic salt, French’s mustard and liquid smoke have liberated me from the chains of barbecue ineptitude – and even impressed my Texas hubby that South Carolina’s barbecue has some merit.  All you need is a bit of time:    

I started with Slow Cooker Pig’s recipe; I let it cool, separated the meat from the cooking broth, and skimmed off the fat.

I doctored Mustard Sauce BBQ, adding a tablespoon or so of tomato paste, and a little bit of liquid smoke. I added the de-fatted broth (about 3/4 cup)

To all this deliciousness, I had to add some Maryland flavor. (NO, I did not add Old Bay . . .) So, I made my daughter’s recipe for coleslaw – which came from her husband’s family:  a package of coleslaw, mild banana peppers, cherry tomatoes, green onions, a bit of mayo – and let it marinate in the refridge.

  

Now, I am learning the distinctions among Texas barbecue are many and varied. But I know with the slow cooker – I need not fear. A little of this, a bit of that . . . who knows?  Not until we started driving between Texas and Maryland did I come to understand how many barbecue styles there are – and that overlooks the barbecue havens (or is that heavens) to our west!

Yeeeeee-haw!

Blue Bloods

Frank and the Father

 

We have been fans of  the police drama “Blue Bloods” for a few years. A recent episode touched on the police chaplain’s escape into alcohol abuse; he was deadening the despair he felt, realizing that few of his flock ever came to him for solace, understanding or help to keep doing their jobs – or – simply living.

He said these kinds of troubles have been redefined.

He had been on duty through 9/11 and its aftermath, but now he was “feeling useless as cops who used to seek his counsel were now opting for doctors who prescribed pills and diagnosed them with things like depression and PTSD.”

Frank (Tom Selleck) asked Father Markhum what was different about his recent circumstances, his having dealt with loss for so long, The chaplain lamented that "nobody's coming" to him anymore, given other sorts of counselors and even the meds people take to feel better. And, basically, he had decided to throw in the towel. (Crises of Faith)

In the television drama, bad things happened; how should the characters cope?  The show did goad me to wonder how well I can help a soul in crisis. Some of them faced stuff that has yet to happen to me and mine – but some of it, like broken hearts, happens routinely. The writers on this show raised unanswered questions – and showed hurt that is not automatically healed. 

A dramatization of living in the post-Christian era?

Perhaps. 

How do I answer a sudden cry for help? Are you prepared?  Are we living in such a way, a hurting heart could trust us with their tears? Or, are we living like that chaplain, consumed with rejection and self-pity because of today’s re-definitions of faith, sin, and ethics?

What I liked was those writers pointed to the help and hope God can be, without expressing one-size fits all bromides. We didn’t hear what the chaplain said – only that he offered a fresh cup of coffee, and a sympathetic ear. Counseling and prescription medicine help heal . . . but counsel that ignores God may lead us into more dead ends.

God did not turn all His healing power over to counselors, even those who preface their profession with “Christian.” Nor did he compress the power all into prescription drugs. 

He leaves room for Himself to work in ways we don’t expect. But if we go A.W.O.L., throwing in the towel the way that police chaplain initially did, despairing that nobody seems interested in the healing hope that faith in Christ is, we’ll miss His mysteries, too.  

 “God did not die and leave you in charge!”  And if I slip into thinking God is my co-pilot, change seats!   

In the “Blue Bloods” episode, finally the police commissioner, Frank, sent his hurting son to get the help that he knew the chaplain could and did offer.  Just one person  came to him – just one, and found the chaplain on duty, albeit in a very empty church.

Praying we have ears to hear the cry, and hospitable hearts to help, even in big empty spaces.

A little Humor & Wise Advice: Bob Newhart: Just STOP IT!

A New Commission

A distinct delight that these years in Dallas have given me is a weekly art class at Pigment School of the Arts. Though the most of the students are primary students, a few times a week, older students are welcomed – and I am among the oldest. Since 2006, I have enjoyed the camaraderie of painters and potters, and the tutelage of an accomplished artist and teacher.  And I have produced . . . art. 

Now, all my accomplishments are not ready for a prime time exhibition at the Kimball, or Dallas Museums, but I placed a few of my paintings in a recent show that Pigment Hosted. And someone liked a painting!  They wanted to buy it! It was however only on loan to the exhibition, having been promised to Douglas, who is unfailingly supportive.  

(Doesn’t that sound . . . a wee bit cheeky: It was only on loan . . .?)

The subject is a bright red cardinal nestled in snow-laden trees in western Maryland, painted from a photograph that Dave Wolfe snapped. I loved the photo, and felt my picture fell short of conveying the moment Dave recorded. So, in addition to it being promised, I was uncertain of its worth. However, I agreed to reproduce it, for a modest fee.

Because so many of the students attending classes at Pigment are six decades younger than I am, they are transparently kind in assessing my work in the studio.   On a few occasions, they have made especially thoughtful and positive comments. But recently, when one young student learned I had expressed reservations about the painting’s worth, she stopped her art own project and wrote me a note.

I was stunned and deeply touched and remembered how powerful a tonic a few kind words spoken from the heart can be. 

Emboldened by such kindness, I started my first commissioned painting, hopefully reproducing what first attracted someone’s interest – alas, with instructions that I leave out the bird.

Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body. (Proverbs 16:24) 

What Heat?

 

(AP Photo/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research)

Today is sunny, seventy degrees – and gentle breezes. October’s last days in Dallas are worth remarking upon – and remembering. The roses have returned for a colorful farewell appearance; the late summer additions are, however, tired. The bachelor buttons are bending because of the cooler, damper days. And the sun goes down now by eight PM.  It’s not exactly bundling up weather, but it is cooler – and so pleasant. What a difference 20 degrees can make!

 Remembering that heat in all this sunshine, shows how quickly I can forget. As I look over what I have written about weather the past four years, I see several times the weather was more than aggravating – it was scary.  

We are coming up on the anniversary of a storm of literally biblical proportions – Sandy.   By Monday night, October 29, 2012 she came ashore – above Maryland and slamming into New Jersey – Wow . . . Hurricane Sandy has been so off my radar screen! When the news stops covering the troubles, I forget as quickly as I forget the heat when the weather cools.

Do you remember fearing for what she might do? (From Boring to Superstorm)

 I do – I was preparing a lecture on Revelation 7.  And what did the very first verse in Revelation 7 say?

 

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.

Knowing our children were in the path of the biggest storm to hit the East Coast in almost two hundred years. I wondered – worried: What if one of those beings drops the corner? After all, in Revelation 6:8 they were given power to destroy one fourth of the earth.  Sandy’s swath was huge and brutal, from New York to the Great Lakes; a newscaster said it would affect one in four Americans, one quarter, of the US population.  

In the Dallas Morning News, today, a story from the AP confirms the scars from Sandy are still deep – thousands of Americans are still trying to fixed their wreck homes, and billions of federal aid hasn’t reached those it was authorized, months ago, to fix.

      Here are ways we can remember and still help, including through the subsequent disasters that have happened in the past year:  Pray & give.

·      Helping People Help People

·      Samaritan’s Purse    

Earlier Blog: Hoping for the Best

Anne Rice: Letting Go of Religion

Anne Rice at home in Palm Springs. Photograph: Dan Tuffs for the Guardian

On a YOUTUBE clip, Anne Rice described a journey from religion to faith in Christ that resonated with my own – being raised in the church, and deciding to leave the church because the world beyond the church was powerfully appealing.  It is time well-spent listening to her well-expressed experience leaving and coming back to faith in Christ. She gets what it means to be saved – looking at the Cross, you are forgiven, and there are no barriers to Him. Christ is inviting you to come back to God. Once you’ve embraced God, your surrender is total. His love is without measure or qualification.   (I am second: Anne Rice)

But a decade later, in an interview on National Public Radio, she said something else:

"For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else." (NPR Interview)

What happened?

Well, I know what might have happened – when she uses the adjectives like this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous to describe “the group’” aka the church. Evidently, the doctrine and the activism of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to homosexual rights – while covering up its own sexual abuses -- convinced her to leave. She said: I found God, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a member of any organized religion.    

I can so relate . . . Organized “religion” -- can be a problem – and it may be the reason some who receive the word of God gladly, wither and fall away. (Matthew 13)  

The church is a mess . . . has been a mess, and until Christ returns, it will be a place for sick people, saved from their own destruction, to recover, and to make themselves useful to others.  Its shepherds are as many and varied as the flocks they tend. Living with sheep – as a sheep – is a picture of church life. None of us are the brightest animal in the realm – we are prone to problems and need tending; the wonder is that Christ bothered with any of us. (John 10:11)

But He did – and Ms Rice surely understands the cost of His care for us – a humiliating death. He gave us a message – and we have a mission. (Matthew 28:19-20) Feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, visiting prisoners, and serving widows is [often] welcomed by the world – until we mention responsibility before a holy God who so loved the world He gave His Son, but hates sin. (Leviticus 19:2; I Peter 1:15-17 KJV)  It is good to know nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ – not so great to hear the seriousness of our sins.

Being delivered from sin’s penalty, Christ’s precious promise to us also comes with warning: “Stop it!” (John 8:1-11) He never added, “Unless you were born that way.”

And that’s our reason for not living differently after He saved us.

We don’t want to hear from folks who can’t get their own act together! Talk about hypocrites!

But, if we rightly see what Christ did on the Cross, as Ms. Rice described, we must let go of what we can’t imagine living without – our little peccadilloes that seem to be just how we’re made.  And we are supposed to do this together . . .

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16

Figuring out how to be in a world that seems to be going crazier and crazier, remaining faithful to Christ, and loving others with the love God showed us, when sometimes we are only barely healed ourselves is tricky. (Mark 5:30-34) Figuring it out in a flock of recovering sinners is trickier. Seeing Ms. Rice’s dislike to what the church does reminds me to take my meds before I point out how the world – and you – needs to shape up.  (The Be-attitudes)

Reason for Rejection of Catholic Church

Autumn Weeds: Too Many Words and So Little Wisdom

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

The Chinese are said to have a curse: May you live in interesting times. (Background) These are interesting times indeed – especially since Americans have permitted our government to meet our needs, real and imagined. And it’s dawning on us that the service is pricey and second-rate.   Indeed, some of us wonder if government has now become our master, demanding more of our money than is prudent to pay, given the results. *

Hence, the most recent government shutdown.

Is this just a petulant backlash, or, is it a principled resistance to disastrous debt and income redistribution? Or, is it just business as usual?

Whatever it is,  it’s all confusing and upsetting, made worse by political leaders indulging intemperate language, politicized press coverage, and news of the government’s mining of private information from our electronic correspondence and conversations. It isn’t that the problems are more vitriolic than ever – see who said what about whom in the American Revolution and the Civil War -- it is that they are interminable, because of our technology, often inaccurate, and usually unchallenged or refuted.

Our leaders, on both sides of the aisle, have blown too many opportunities to reform a health care system that has done great things and could do better. How I wish we could have had an open debate on how best to serve those for who we are responsible! (Proverbs 24:11; Luke 10:25-37) But we did not. So, here we are.

The bottom line is TANSTAAFL – and offering “free” insurance to the sickliest, the neediest, and the oldest is a good thing. But insurance doesn’t mean health care. When he preached there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, I thought my father meant, beware: nobody gives you something for nothing. But to some extent, many of us have all come to believe the government can and should. It can’t – but we

can do better! (NPR: Religious Alternatives to Obamacare)

I keep listening for answers from the White House and the Congress.

You'll find wisdom on the lips of a person of insight, but the shortsighted needs a slap in the face. The wise accumulate knowledge - a true treasure; know-it-alls talk too much - a sheer waste . . . Liars secretly hoard hatred; fools openly spread slander. The more talk, the less truth; the wise measure their words. (Proverbs 10, esp. vv 13,14, 19, emphasis added)

*( See How our High School Graduates Rank internationally, and the state of our roads Decay Despite Stimulus.)

Reform THEIR Entitlements, Not Mine!  

Hurry

Thoughts today stirred from a poem, titled “Hurry.” (Gleaned from a blog,  Sober Boots)

Yesterday, I did not hurry; I spent the whole day putzing and trying to come to terms with the emotions a favorite PBS program generated.

What a gift it was.

To have a day when nothing pressed in, scolding me to “Do this now.”

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to?

 To her grave?
To mine?

 Where one day she might stand all grown?

Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry—
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing.

Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.

—Marie Howe, The Kingdom Of Ordinary Time

All the memories the poem evoked! For I hurried our kids, and Doug and myself through many days  -- days that dragged through at break neck speed.

But I found a hymn written by Kristyn Getty for her little baby girl that slowed me down – and reminded to pray:

"This world is not as it should be..."; "May my mistakes not hinder you..."; “Father hear my ceaseless prayer == o keep my children and theirs in your care. A Mother's Prayer

Unplugging from a Party Line

Last Tango in Halifax's Characters

The Last Tango in Halifax tells a winsome tale of how two families and their friends get on, when Alan and Celia rekindle a flame, 60 years old.  The writing is excellent. The whole production, terrific! The characters and their peccadilloes are wholly believable; even the rascals are engaging.  A form of religion is in the background, but with no substance, except negative stereotypes and bad language. And by word and deed, they are all doing fine with out God, having given up on Him long ago. 

While the series began with a winsome premise – this last week’s chapter was anything but charming.  It’s a quietly disturbing propaganda piece about life in the post-Christian era.  

If you read a summary of the episodes, thus far, it reads like real people we know.  God knows I’ve walked down a few paths on which the characters are now treading! (See a summary: Last Tango in Halifax.)  But, last night’s episode took my breath away.

They do terrible things to themselves and to each other! I have grown to care about all these people – and what they get themselves into – their pain is so credible. 

It’s what life looks like, when people do what is right in their own eyes – and the depravity seems harmless enough at first. 

Okay – if you are still reading after that word, let me hasten to say, I have loved this show!  Would that I felt so deeply for the real people God has placed so directly in my path.

I am in Chapter 3 of Exodus.  (Bible Study . . . Again) It’s where God commissioned Moses to go to the Israelites first, and tell them God is real, with eyes, ears, and a heart. (Exodus 3:6-7) Then, Moses would get to carry this message to Pharaoh.  Moses was not on board with this plan, however, having made a good life for himself and family in Midian. I can so relate to his hedging!

Too often, I don’t want to unplug from well-done propaganda that says, everybody is doing just fine without God. I look at this story, Last Tango in Halifax, and I can see people are hurting! Habits, hurts and hang-ups can make us crazy, mean or stupid.

But who wants to be a messenger with God’s remedy?  I so get why Moses wanted someone else to go!   

And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy . . . It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk. (Colossians 3:5-8)

 Alas, I regret unplugging from so well-written and acted a production, that misrepresents the truth. 

"The Devil isn't as conspicuous in society as he once was, Scalia said, because "he got wilier" and now advances his agenda by "getting people not to believe in him or in God."

 

Current Thoughts worth Pondering: Justice Scalia on the Devil and God, among other topics.

  Helping Each Other Out of Our Grave Clothes

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You will have health insurance!

Actually, we aren’t sure what we will have – for what is on paper has never been done in America. It will not be free – or uncomplicated, and it will not be the end of the world, although the Affordable Care Act will change forever how we care for each other in the country. (As did Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and indoor plumbing.)

The November issue of Consumer Reports has an informative article on the new law. (As well as information about long-term health care choices) These folks also have created an online guide:HealthLawHelper.org. 

Seeing the problems inherent in government –run insurance programs, such as Social Security Disability, I believe that the Affordable Care Act may offer help, but it will also bring complications, delays, and inequalities that can frustrate sick people and their loved ones. 

The times in which we live are indeed interesting – reminiscent of what the prophet Isaiah saw. (Isaiah 10)  Whichever side of this divisive issue you stand, please remember your health is a gift, as is your life.  So, too, the length of your days, and your children’s days – even the best insurance program will never add a minute to it.  And pray for your leaders – all of them, even the ones with whom you disagree. (2 Chronicles 7, especially  verse 14)