PoisonIvy.v.2020

So. Just some 2020 ramblings as I (hopefully) am hitting the end of what has been my worst ever case of Poison Ivy. Yes. It deserves the upper case. 

Our property is highly wooded and even more highly covered with PI, so I bump into it a few times a summer. Which, in the past, has just led to little isolated itchy bumps that fade in a few days like mosquito bites. 

But not in 2020.

This PI started slow. Nothing to write home about. And then it started to spread. And if reporters were writing about it the stories would have been very mixed. Right Hand and Arm: DISASTER! RED ALERT! Left Arm: Not that bad, really, quit your griping. Rest of body: What are you talking about? There is no problem here. Then after a few days of these conflicting reports, the Face weighed in with: AAACK! WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON? And a day or two later the Face shut down one of the Eyes. At which point Brain decided it was time to seek some sort of Expert Advice. Said Expert administered a Sharp Intervention in areas that had not reported any conflict whatsoever. That Sharp Intervention did not seem to have any significant effect for a lagtime of 72 hours. And then suddenly there was a vast improvement on all fronts.

We are now a week from that Intervention. And varied reports continue to come in from parts of the body. The Right Hand and Arm have ceased to weep and are now covered with fresh pink flesh. The Left Hand and Arm continue to have limited squalls. The Face and Eye believe everything is back to normal, why are we still talking about this? And the Legs are fighting very limited outbreaks and saying: Is This What All the Fuss Was About? But the Brain is saying: I wish it were completely gone. What if there is a need for another intervention? And what if we touch the Evil Weed again?

It is hard in the midst of 2020 to know what is going on and what to listen to. 

Let Us Fall Into the Hand of God

So. Right now we are in the midst of a shutdown to try to slow the spread of Coronavirus. Everyone is scared. I was trying to figure out if I am more or less scared than I was at 9/11, and I have settled on: Less scared.

I think it is because this disease seems so directly from God's hand rather than the hand of an enemy and so lacks the same feeling of evil directed against us. I was thinking about David after he conducted the census he shouldn't have (II Samuel 24) and was given three options by the prophet:
‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”

David answers: 
“I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”  

and I have to agree. Then you look at the numbers... 
So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. 16 And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, “It is enough; now stay your hand.”

Wow! 70,000 in three days in a very small area geographically. Praise God for His mercy in staying the hand of destruction, and may He be pleased to do so again very soon. 

Pocketses

I woke from a dream. :) I'm guessing this one was spawned by a discussion I had with Mr Music about carrying his house key at all times. 

I was doing some sort of research -- actually, I think, a doctorate -- into what people carry in their pockets and how it varies across occupations and how it has varied throughout history. And the research was expanded to include things like the cloth pockets women wore in the colonial period, and purses (pocketbags) and even small backpacks. 

The apparent focus of this research was how it seems to have changed in my life. My Dad carried a wallet, some change, his keys, matches, a fountain pen, and always a cloth handkerchief. I remember my Grandads also carrying off-white pipe cleaners that came in packs of about 30 with a paper band around them (Dutch something?) even though I don't have any memory of them smoking pipes. I will have to ask my Mum about that one. 

I don't generally have much in my pockets -- just a fidget toy and a lip balm --but rely on a purse or coat pockets for the rest. And here's a fun link if you want to see into other people's pockets.

So I am curious. What do you carry with you wherever you go? 

Drops

Yesterday I woke at the end of a drizzle. I looked out my window and saw the pretty raindrops on the rhododendron. And here are the places my head went:

first, my head was quoting a poem from a poster I had in junior high. I have never been able to track it down so maybe it was just poster fodder but it said Dylan:

In the early pearly morning when the sun begins to rise
and the flowers lift their faces
In a world that's less than kind
Tell me, tell me, tell me
There are still some quiet places


which leads to what is quite possibly my favorite verse:

"in returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength."
But you were unwilling. ~ Isaiah 30:15
(I quote this to myself and always add, "may I be willing.")


then come the verses a couple chapters later: 


And the effect of righteousness will be peace, 
and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
My people will abide in a peaceful habitation
in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. ~ Isaiah 32:17-18


and the whole cycle concluded with me reciting a song from camp growing up - I don't remember the tune but just the words - before breakfast: 

I saw raindrops on my window, Joy is like the rain.
Laughter runs across my pain, slips away and comes again. Joy is like the rain. 

I saw clouds upon a mountain, Joy is like a cloud. 
Sometimes silver, sometimes gray, always sun not far away. Joy is like a cloud. 

I saw Christ in wind and thunder, Joy is tried by storm. 
Christ asleep within my boat, whipped by wind, yet still afloat. Joy is tried by storm. 

I saw raindrops on the river, Joy is like the rain. 
Bit by bit the river grows, till all at once it overflows. Joy is like the rain. 
~ Miriam Therese Winter

Ramblings about Red

Color is always interesting to me. And now it is time to think about red.

Back at Christmas time I found gel pens on clearance for a dime and bought them out for stocking stuffers. There was only one red one, and I kept it for myself. I had it stuffed in a back pocket where apparently it clicked open without my knowledge and ALL the ink in it soaked through my pocket and on to the upholstery in our relatively new and here-to-fore unstained car. It was not a fine moment. 

DH did all he could to get it out, but, it was still very much there, so every time I saw it I felt back in the doghouse. 

But now, the sun has faded the red right away... see? Hardly there, just a little pinkish. Maybe by the end of summer no mark of this mishap will remain.

Now that surprises me. It seems like red is the most stainerific color and there it is, nearly gone. So natch I start thinking about Isaiah:

though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
    they shall become like wool.

How can this be? We know it's through the blood... red again. A very staining red. How on earth does covering something with blood lead to it being white? I don't know. Red blood is full of oxygen, giving life. 

I also think about the character Red from Shawshank Redemption and the hope he found. There is even greater hope to be found in Christ. Thank God that sin can be atoned for by Jesus's red blood.

Thoughts on Thanos

Something about certain movies gets my mind going in lots of directions at once. Last night we saw Avengers: Infinity War. Not sure what you saw in the film and thought about but here are some of the things that were going through my head as I watched it and have thought about it since. 

(spoiler alert, if that matters)

First. If you give a villain a name that obviously means Death (thanks, high school poetry teacher, for having us analyze "Thanatopsis") that gives fair warning to pay attention to what's going on in his view of life. 

Probably my overriding concern: Thanos's belief that he is acting in mercy by killing half the people for the benefit of the other half. That is not mercy. Mercy is being delivered from some sort of punishment or unpleasant consequence which is due. I keep thinking about the similarities between Thanos's plan for improving life on the planets he rules and our own country's abortion for the sake of convenience. Abortion is all too often viewed as some sort of mercy, too.   :(   I also keep thinking of Shakespeare's "the quality of mercy is not strained" - well, Thanos was certainly not making what he was calling mercy voluntary. 

The way Thanos destroys people - causing them to crumble and turn back to dust and be blown away - is a reversal of man being created from the dust of the earth. I found this a powerful image and like the reminder of death (momento mori). If we saw the dust of aborted children floating around, cars and helicopters crashing because they are not there, would that get us to notice the horror and death? Those scenes remind me of the part in It's a Wonderful Life where George Bailey sees what the world would have been had he never existed. 

I keep thinking about the characters who were willing to lay down their lives to stop Thanos, especially Vision and Gamora. They saw the need and were willing to do it, but those who loved them stood in their way -- and led to Thanos's apparent triumph. Jesus tells us to come and die with Him, but how common it is for loved ones try to stop us from laying down our lives for others and for the kingdom. How does this fit in with the film's talk about not trading one life for others? I think the difference comes in when someone chooses to lay down someone ELSE'S life for others, as Thanos did with Gamora -- and seems to feel he is noble to do with all the life he is extinguishing. 

I'm curious, what were you thinking as you watched and reflected on Infinity War?

verses jumbling around in my head:

It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people. ~ John 18:13

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ~ John 15:13

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. ~ John 10:17-18

then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground ~ Genesis 2:7

he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust... the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more ~ Psalm 103:14-16

Follow Your Dreams. Or Maybe Not.

This morning I woke from switching the channel in my brain to catch bits of three different dreams.

In the first one, I was working on recreating a Very Famous work of art for in my home but struggling with the details on where to put it. Apparently one of the most famous sculptures of all time is a 100 foot long strip of white fabric about 2 1/4 inches wide. It has been cut on the bias and starched to crispness with a crease right down the center. Then it is laid on the floor, stretched almost straight out but with only slight graceful curving this way and that, undulations like the wave of the sea, truly a thing of beauty. 

As I say, I was making one but only shorter (as nowhere in my home would allow for the full 100 feet). I was none too sure it would be visually effective in its shortness, in fact, it looked more like trash that needed to be picked up and tossed...

so I switched to the next channel.  Here I was in a room with a window with six large panes, light streaming in at a the wintertime late afternoon angle, but very bright. Beside me on the floor (the floor again?) was a plastic reindeer, kind of a chunky one, maybe more like a moose, but his antlers were reindeer antlers and richly covered with gold glitter. Anyhow, the light was making a wonderful silhouette of the reindeer and the crossbars of the window pane, which I wanted to photograph. But I could not figure out how to photograph just the silhouetted shadow on the floor and not the admittedly tacky reindeer itself. So again, I switched the channel... 

on this channel I found myself with a pocket full of four or five plastic one inch balls, well, really large beads as they were strung together on elastic cording. They had the swishy stripes around them that are on some eos lip balm balls. I realized it was a "disassembled Chinese pet" and decided it was time to get up and start my real life.