Strange Looking Shrubbery

My neighbors have a strange little shrub on their front lawn. It boasts a sunken middle--rather like a green leafy pudding-filled breakfast roll. Like a fearless investigator, I sneaked over there with my camera early one morning when my riders were late for the commute.

Ah. Poor meter reader guy. I'll bet he remembers that one.

















It causes him no end of trouble--
That bush which resembles a bubble.
Each month when the reader
Examines the meter
He thinks about making shrub stubble

Spoonerism

Turtle just created a spoonerism that made us both laugh. He said:

Well, it's 200 miles away...as the fly crows.

I tried to locate a picture of a crowing fly, but this was the closest I could find.
He does look like he is trying to
say something, but not wake the world in the
early morning.

I think I know the subconscious reason for the slip though: Turtle has a new hobby; he ties flies. Flies, yes. Like fly-fishermen use at the ends of those long whips they call fishing lines.
Anyway, he wrestles with string, scissors, wires, fluff balls, and silk to create little poofs of fuzzy stuff that resemble an insect or a baby mouse and hide mean hooks. He has to use tying tools for making tiny knots and magnifying glasses to see them. He calls it relaxing. Go figure that one!

The Sounds of Early Morning

A moisty, overcast morning is perfect for listening to bird orchestras. Today I heard a woodpecker playing percussion, robins twittering in soprano, and--from the high swaying vestibule of newly-leafed branches--the hollow-piped baritone of cooing doves.

Enjoy.

It Must Be Green Again

My husband Turtle is colorblind.
Not totally colorblind, mind you, so that his world is black, white and all gray in- between, but a faded sort of colorblind that can't tell the difference between red, orange, and yellow; that only sees the blue in aqua and purple (making them the same color); and that cannot tell the difference between green and brown.

Poor guy.

I feel sorry for anyone who can't see green. Especially at this time of year, when glorious green sings mightily under the pale blue sky.

I sigh contentedly out the car window,
"It's so beautiful out there."

He says: "What? Oh. It must be green again."

A Full Week

Starting with Easter morning and seeing the glorious sunrise as I walked up the hill to church, and ending with a joyful phone call from my daughter announcing that she has found a church to attend that she likes and is comfortable with, my week has been too full for writing. The next month promises to be more of the same, so I'll have to take each moment as it comes.

After a great Easter service last week, we journeyed to the home of our son's fiancee's family. They live a few miles from the city, on a beautiful couple of acres where birds swarm to the feeder, and the volleyball court fills a corner of the back yard. Our older daughter, her husband, their two children, our second daughter, and our son were there...as well as a family reunion about the size of our congregation on a good Sunday. There were so many people to meet and absorb names for, that I gave up. Hopefully, we'll renew acquaintances at the wedding. Anyway, it was a great time for relaxed visiting, and I give Beverly and Brian thanks for hosting it.

Monday, Claye and I headed to a little town about sixty miles from here to investigate the art scene and beg for a job. Believe it or not, we came home with a job and an apartment only three blocks away. All week, Turtle and I have been taking loads of stuff down and finding room for it in the tiny apartment, getting electricity and water on etc. etc. etc.

At school, I'm preparing for four things--concurrently: We have an accreditation visit for the next three days, so, of course we wanted everything spick, span, and ready; I'm working with my seventh and eighth grade Bible classes on a two hour program/performance for the 26th of April; I'm hosting a junior high level academic tournament on the 21st; and I'm preparing for the senior graduation. Life is tooooo full right now.

Ah well. It isn't too full for pictures so here are a few that I took this week.

My Lively Spring

On this glorious Easter morning everything silently whispers the thrill of new life...resurrection! Yes, it's true. I took these pictures in my yard. Everywhere--through the dry grass and the bedding of last years leaves--there's fresh green, and vibrant spring colors. The ancient peony is poking her knobby fingers up in a grab for sunshine, and new rose leaves dress yesterday's dry, dead vine. Pink tulips sniff at the air; the first little lilac dares to open; dandelions and daffodils shout joyfully in brilliant yellow golds.
The pear tree's thin white blossoms sing,
and blue-grape hyacinth bells all ring--
a tremolo against the wild warm winds.
It's Easter.
The day Death died.




And I can't help but think how I, too, will one day rest beneath the fall leaves and the winter snow. I'll leave quietly then--no frenzied bucket list to clutter my last days.
No. I plan to come back.
So all the things I haven't done can wait for that long morning in the sunlight.
My lively spring.
My resurrection day.

"Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime." --Martin Luther.

Good Friday

I lowered my face and cried, there in the dark
The shame was palpable, and long I stood.
My highest shot had somehow missed the mark,
And furthermore, I knew it always would.

Is there no exit from this wretched place?
Must I embrace despair and call it mine?
I know there must be higher and better ways,
But I can't see them. Lord; you know I'm blind.

I stretched for Heaven. He bent down to Earth
In a feat that seemed impossible, yet stood
And, paying a price beyond what I was worth,
He sanctified this day and made it good.

He took my guilt, so say whatever you will.
He took my hand. He leads. I follow still.




jc-a sonnet--4-2-2010

Some Things are Wrong

I just said it and I’ll say it again: wrong, wrong, wrong.
It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t there to see and understand it.
It doesn’t matter that it isn’t from my culture.
It doesn’t matter that it happened a long time ago.

Some things are just wrong.
And we should speak out against them.

Strangling a person who happens to be walking in your area of the park is wrong.
Beating your wife senseless is wrong.
Abusing children is wrong.
Turning another human being into your slave is wrong.
Sacrificing a human to appease a god is wrong.
Forcing a widow to throw herself alive into the funeral pyre of her husband is wrong.
Hating someone because of his skin color or nationality or social status is wrong.
Exterminating a race of people is wrong.
Bullying someone into suicide is wrong.
Getting pleasure from someone else’s pain is wrong.

We should be intolerant of these things, not excuse, glamorize, condone, and ignore them. All humans feel terror, pain, injustice and outrage. That doesn’t change from tribe to tribe, city to city, or century to century. We can say: “what happened was wrong.”
We should say it.

Are we judging? Certainly. And let the judgment come right back to us if we do these things. Oh I know it’s not the polite, the politically correct thing to do.
It is the right thing to do.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that hurt.
It said “Against abortion? Don’t have one.”

That’s like saying: “Against slavery? Don’t own one.”
“Against cigarette smoke? Don’t breathe.”
“Against drunken driving? Don’t drink and drive.”

It says: “don’t call anything wrong, and we’ll both be ok”.
But we won’t.
Most victims didn’t plan to be one.
Innocents are hit by drunken drivers. Innocents die of lung cancer. Innocents are caught by slave traffickers.
When innocents are sacrificed…innocence is sacrificed.
In every culture. In every time.
It’s wrong.

Hosanna

Here's an old hymn for this week

Hosanna to the Royal Son

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Hosanna to the royal son
Of David’s ancient line!
His natures two, his person one,
Mysterious and divine.

The root of David, here we find,
And offspring, are the same:
Eternity and time are joined
In our Immanuel’s name.

Blest he that comes to wretched man
With peaceful news from Heaven!
Hosannas, of the highest strain,
To Christ the Lord be given.

Let mortals ne’er refuse to take
The Hosanna on their tongues,
Lest rocks and stones should rise and break
Their silence into songs.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Alchemy

Earth
Rain
Seeds
Sunlight
Warmth
Breeze

Fragility
that cannot long survive
In grubby palms
Or dingy pockets

Yet every spring
We see again
The alchemy of God
As He turns hidden things to Gold

Picture Transfer

Microbe Hunters

Every now and then I have to talk about a book I'm reading. (Yes,probably when I should be washing the laundry or mopping the floor, but oh well, I'll not make excuses tonight.)

This book has been one of my favorites for years, and every time I read it, I marvel.
Why?
Well because it is a college textbook and it's interesting. Yes, you heard all those words in the same sentence. I know, unfathomable. You have to read the book. It's called: Microbe Hunters, was first printed in 1926, and is the history of those great men who spent their lives understanding germs and how to get rid of them. From Leeuwenhoek to Walter Reed, it traces the discoveries, vaccines, campaigns, and sacrifices that would ultimately save lives, win wars, and stop tears from running down many a face. The writer is Paul de Kruif. He writes with a pleasant, easy going style that carries you effortlessly through chapter after chapter--through labs and hospital corridors and even into netted sleeping tents in the jungles of the Caribbean. It's an adventure.

Just to give an example of the author's pleasant forthright style, I'm posting his introduction:

When I wrote the book you're going to have to read now, I never dreamed it would ever be made into a textbook that you folks would have to read in hours when you'd rather be playing football or dancing or raising the dickens generally.

I wrote it first of all because I had my bread and butter to make by writing books, and microbe hunting was what I knew better than anything, having been a microbe hunter myself. And it was more exciting than anything I knew; so, putting those two things together, I figured the book might help me make my living.

That's the real reason I did it, not because it was of any tremendous significance or importance or because I wanted to bother you people. But I always did like these microbe hunters, because they were human, making mistakes, quarreling, trying, mostly failing but barging back into the battle again, not giving up.

They weren't all brain with no body nor were they stuffed shirts with empty skulls as you sometimes find folks with big names to be. The best thing about them was that they stayed kids after they'd grown up. That's why they had such a good time digging and digging at jobs most people would call monotonous. They were really just playing.

You can buy this book online. The new version sells for around ten dollars, used books for less than three. (I have the 1948 version)

I'd write more...but...well...you know I really want to get back to my reading.

Snap Circuits

My grandson got this wonderful little toy for his sixth birthday. He and his little sister (the one with purple toenails) had a great time playing with it at my house. Of course I had to get out the old camera. I think I'm becoming an advertiser for thinkgeek.com...but not anything like my daughter, who keeps a wish list there for everyone in the household.

Snap Circuits



Here, for instance, is a picture of my grandson's toy shelf--all plush microbes and cell models.

Gifts

This week our prompt is the opening of Isabel Allende’s 1999 novel Daughter of Fortune

Everyone is born with some special talent

...and while I agree in principle, I see a problem with the places people take this. Here are two fallacies I hear expressed as a "logical next leap" of philosophizing.

1. "I haven't discovered anything yet that I'm the best at."

God didn't promise us that we would each be "the best" at something. There are a lot less "somethings" to be the best at than there are people in this world at one time. We should sift through the talents we possess and settle on the ones we can use to bring the most happiness to the most people and the most glory to God, understanding that these may not be the same. Usually, these are things we enjoy doing. Sometimes they won't be, but we shouldn't summarily discard a talent based on our dislike of it. Understand this: There will always be other people better than we are at "our gifts", but God doesn't ask us to be better. He asks us to do what we can with what we've got. Success, in God's eyes, is measured by percentage--not gross ability.

2. "When it comes to gifts, all men are equal."

False. God gives us all gifts but they aren't distributed equally. I see this with students every day. You would think that a child who played basketball well would invariably fail math class and that a star saxophone player would spend all his time on the bench. It doesn't always work that way. On the contrary, some children seem to inherit everything: looks, talent, brains, and charm, while others blend into the mousy-gray background of mediocrity--twitching a sad tail occasionally, in wimpering objection to their lot in life. Once again, there will always be people better than we are. What makes us equal is not the talent scale; what makes us equal is the fact that we all have a perfectly priceless soul and a Heavenly Father who loves us with an immeasurable love. In His sight we are all "the best" and "the most desirable" and worthy of supreme sacrifice. The road to His home, though it has been painted as overly difficult, is never an obstacle course of leaps and sprints, or an achievement test with minimum entrance scores. It's a road that challenges our gifts in just the proper places. Thus one may leap through the gate...or crawl.

The best gift is one that has been offered to everyone, one we have yet to achieve--eternal life. That's equal. Nobody's will be longer or better than anyone else's. I think we will wonder why we so fiercely tried to be "the best" back on this cursed planet where mediocrity was more common than genius, and less dangerous. It will embarrass us to admit that fame and recognition were more important to us than pleasing the Master.

Spring Break

All grandmothers should stop everything else and have a little fun playing with grandchildren over spring break. It keeps you young and creative. Here's a brief catalog of lots of wonderful moments we've shared over the last couple of days. If I call it taming wild horses, I guess it can be another labor of Hercules...but that's not really fair. They aren't particularly wild, certainly not man-eaters (although Zaya was howling loudly, pretending to be a wolf this morning...hmm. Yes, I'll go for the Horses of Diomedes labor.)