Month: September 2019

September 30, 2019

 Autumn, but not cooler weather, arrives tomorrow. Our garden has done remarkably well during hot and dry September. Here is show and tell.

 Coxcomb (or Silosia)

Morning glory in the succulent bed 

Calla lillies

September 29, 2019

Pondering by the Sunday evening fire pit.

1. Why do many seniors lose control of their memory?
2. Central Indiana has received less than half an inch of rain this month, while communities within a range of 500 miles have been flooded. Hmmm.
3. What is the origin of the strongly obeyed imperative DON’T SNITCH?
4. What and where is the line between red and green? (I am color blind.)
5. People go nuts over their home town pro team, yet most if not all players, coaches and managers come from afar.
6. Refresh my memory: with the fall of the Ottoman empire, why did western nations presume to designate countries and boundaries in the Middle East?
7. Rudy Giuliani. My mind doesn’t know what to fix on.
8. Mind and body are understood partly through science. Soul doesn’t fit into test tubes.
9. On this particular planet, many people with white skin feel superior to those with colored skin. Totally baffling.
10. When Jesus is said to have prayed, “deliver us from evil,” what was he referring to?

September 28, 2019

Days dawn and days pass. Most of the more than 29,000 days of my life are not preserved in my memory, yet each of those days, even the hours of each of those days, mark the journey of a soul. A prayer I read today in Rachel Naomi Remen’s My Grandfather’s Blessings — “Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed.”

Today, for example, where was that bush? There at the clothes line as I hung out a big load of laundry? In the garden, specifically separating pebbles and soil dug from a hole where we will re-locate a hydrangea?  Or in watering the mahonia which appears to be suffering from this month’s arid heat? Was the burning bush there in Starbucks where Leah and I ate lunch? Or on Shirley’s porch as she told of her life-long career in nursing? What prompted me to leave the Saturday afternoon football game on TV in favor of several books? What guided the making of messages I sent to friends?

What I know: Leah blessed me with her totally positive outlook on life; both the laundry and garden work gave me a clean feeling; Shirley’s cheerfulness and verve inspired me.

The highlight of the day came through Dr. Remen’s essays. I’ll give but one line of rumination: another person’s offense — be that an event or just a troublesome personality trait may, with the help of the buddha seed inside us, turn us away from pouting about how the other’s offense and/or personality negatively affect us and towards a spirit of compassion and encouragement of the other.

The burning bush this evening is here and now.

September 27, 2019 – – – – – Notes

50. Autumn plays music on my chords, reminding me of a poem I wrote years ago. Here is one portion of it.

Come with me to see
   autumn leaves laid out
   for an evening wake.

Our due is not to clear
   the lawn but to make
  thanksgiving.

We shall not haste
   to rake and break the
   foliage that footnotes
   the season of their lives.

Once wrapped and folded they
   shall be carried in sacred procession
   to their burial bin behind the barn
   where under the dark vault of
   heaven oak, plum maple
   and beech shall become nothing.

Yet spring will awake with
   storied loam for the asking. 

51. Complementing garden work was a visit from a valued friend. I’m rather sure he liked Irvington, its houses and streets and Jockamo’s pizza.

52. Irvington: James, on the way to work, pulled to my side of the street to set the day; Ora insisted that her dog could walk faster if she really wanted to; Shirley fussed about the Y closing the outdoor pool without informing her. That was this morning. If I went outside now there would be another three people to chat with.

53. Somebody told me that if local TV stations gave mainly positive news, their audience would decrease.

54. Dan Rather: “This [the Washington scene] is unprecedented. This is dangerous. But this is also necessary. We cannot panic in the face of what we confront, or get overwhelmed by details. We must breathe deep, take stock, see all for what it is, methodically and fairly uncover right from wrong, truth from fiction, and ultimately we must persevere, for the sake of our nation.”

55. In this era of shouting and shooting, I take comfort from little things — words, smiles, the colored leaf, a small waterfall.

September 26, 2016 – – – – – Notes

42. The computer is gawking at me. “Well, I’m ready.” 

43. “Be patient! I’m looking at a moth.” 

44.This morning a small flower popped up in the succulent bed, wishing me a peaceful walk. 

45. Big job for the day — sealing the cracks in the concrete driveway.

 

46. Typically the volume is turned to zero when a sporting event is on TV. That would be an appropriate volume setting for local TV news. For me, a “still small voice” is sufficient.

47. A friend told of trying to do a good job at work, direct a community  organization and supply adequate parenting.  I remember.

48. One big reason the population of birds is down — hey I read this, I didn’t make it up — is the increased population of cats. Just sayin’.

49. Greta Thunberg — how about a Nobel?

 

September 25, 2019 – – – – –

32. Yesterday Chris and I checked out the wall paintings at Rabble before buying coffee.

mil

33. Driving my son’s Prius today. At 250,000 miles it hums a soft happy tune.

34. What does an impeachment inquiry really mean?

35. The Cubs have fallen over the cliff, now eight games behind the Cards.

36. Mayor Pete impresses me with his thoughtfulness, candor, and interpersonal demeanor. Maybe he would consent to be veep this go round.

37. This country’s strategy for gun safety isn’t working. It isn’t working.

38. What a rift, a troublesome gully, between center-right Republicans and center-left Democrats.  Between far-right Republicans and far-left Democrats it’s a chasm, deep and very scary.  A recent study showed the significant differences not only in political opinions but also in education, residential choice, vocation, income and religious affiliation.

39. A friend told me she has frequent conversations with her cat. Today a squirrel sat on a low limb and taught an entire Sunday School lesson.

40. Why was the woman, at the side Johnson Street, in her car, sobbing?

41. Remarkable, Ken Burns 15 hour documentary on country music.

September 23, 2019 – – – – – Notes

24. I slept too soundly, thus missing an opportunity to welcome last night’s rain.

25. Tom’s got my number. Here’s a photo from him at the moment the field of seed corn was harvested.

 

26. A pleasant late afternoon errand: delivering six small bags of tomatoes to neighbors.

27. Seems strange to me that it’s the phone call from Donald Trump to the Ukraine — rather than his lies, management style, and moral history — that finally convinces some senators to consider impeachment.

28. Cousin Naomi sent $50. I intended the books as a gift.

29. The owner of the bike shop recommends that I take the bicycle, left by the side of the street, to Salvation Army or Goodwill.

30. Is it not the case that many/most mythologies are based on legends?

31. Nailed two big words in this weeks crossword puzzle — cataracts and beesting — and hope a third one is correct — beergardens.

September 22, 2019 – – – – – Notes

19. On this windy day, each gust brings down walnuts galore. Since I lack a hard hat, I keep my distance.

20. What we know of Mary Magdalene comes almost entirely from legend excepting for references to her in the Gospels and for a codex, unearthed in Egypt in the late 19th century that contains fragments of a Gospel according to Mary. I learn this today and much more from viewing The Learning Channel’s documentary “The Secrets of Mary Magdalene.”

21. Sunday is newspaper day; I continue to be disheartened and at times depressed by what I hear and read: the destruction of Peruvian lands by diggers for gold, the bullying conduct of Donald Trump, gun deaths in the United States this year, the burning of Amazon forests, the dangerous relationship of Iran and Saudi Arabia, etc and etc.

22. An excerpt from Somini Sengupta’s page one report in The New York Times:

This is the world we live in: Punishing heat waves, catastrophic floods, huge fires and climate conditions so uncertain that children took to the streets en masse in global protests to demand action.

But this is also the world we live in: A pantheon of world leaders who have deep ties to the industries that are the biggest sources of planet-warming emissions, are hostile to protests or use climate science denial to score political points. 

23. Fortunately tomatoes lighten my mood. The title of the photo: In intra-species play the Big Boys take on the Romas. Romas have first down and ten on the fifty yard line.

September 21, 2019 – – – – – Notes

11. In the night when I got up to use the bathroom, I heard the rain. I then sat by the bedroom window to enjoy as many drops as possible.

12. Forgot to put the crow bar out for CP.

13. Found a broken, twisted bicycle by the street. Should I inform someone about this possible theft?

14.The urban farmers remembered Mel Glick who died recently, talked rather innocently about the Taliban, heard Peter Wigginton tell of his work in Ecuador, and shared our ideals about relating to people who are greatly or slightly different from us.

15. Finished moving Japanese blood grass.

16. Considered my knowledge gap of ABCs.  As a 21 year old, I knew what these stood for: 

AOL — labor organization
BBC — British Broadcasting Company
CPS — Civilian Public Service
DRG — Democratic Republic of Germany
FCC — Federal Communications Commission
GMC — General Motors Company
HST — Harry S Truman
IRS — Internal Revenue Service
LGH — Lancaster General Hospital
MCC — Mennonite Central Committee
PP&L — Pennsylvania Power and Light
TVA — Tennessee Valley Authority
VOA — Voice of America
WPA — Works Progress Administration
YCC — Youth’s Christian Companion

But now as an 81 year old, I am discombobulated with just the ABCs of computer lingo: ATB, BOT, PDF, AGP, AOL, ISP, CAD, RAM, iOS, URL, CPU, MP3, FPS and ETC.

17.  Research project for this week: learning about the gospel of Mary.

18. Tomorrow is the first day of autumn.

September 19, 2019 – – – – – Notes

1. The 19th and still no rain for the month.
2. Came across a photo I took ten years ago

3. Isn’t it early to get a flu shot?

4. School children around the world today are calling adults (and government) to address climate change.

5. “Nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves, and it is the Judge, the Victim and the belief system that makes us do this.” Don Miguel Ruiz

6. The Cubs lost to St. Louis last evening. Don’t see how they can climb back into first place.

7. Why I clip stems from the tomatoes this time of year: it’s my way of coaxing the plant to focus on tomatoes that have already set, rather than try to produce another three dozen pigmies that will die come frost.

 

8. Today’s morning task — moving four more clumps of Japanese blood grass. Today’s afternoon task — cleaning behind the washer, dryer, and laundry tub.

9.  Tom is harvesting seed corn already. The “regular” corn and beans will  be given another two weeks to mature.

10. Joy surprised me with a large piece of praline candy at lunch.