Rabbit! Rabbit!

art, butterflies, Family, Fathers Day, greek myths, Helios, holidays, inspiration, Memorial Day, Ovid, Phaeton, rabbits, renewal, summer solstice, summer vacation

Welcome to June 2023

Since we’re now past Memorial Day, the unofficial beginning of summer has arrived. Yet the summer solstice, which is astronomical summer won’t be here until Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 9:57 AM CDT. Weathercasters use this alternative meteorological definition: “seasons begin on the first day of the months that include the equinoxes and solstice.” Since June 1 is National Go Barefoot Day, we rabbits, who never wear shoes on either our lucky foot or our three other feet, can rejoice and celebrate with our human friends as we share the delights of bare-footing across the park lawn.

Summer is the season of picnics, patios, porches, and other alfresco dining activities. I remember mayonnaise sandwiches, butter and sugar sandwiches, plus the always delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Mama stirred the jelly into the peanut butter so it didn’t dribble out as it melted in our hot Southern summers.

June has International Picnic Day on June 18, but we rabbits don’t need a special day to have a feast in a field. In fact, we eat outside every single day. We are picnic aficionados. I’m not sure if June has an exceptional amount of national food days, for I haven’t paid attention lately due to my loss of vision from cataracts. Now that I’ve had surgery on both eyes, I’m just amazed at what all I’ve been missing!

June has 46—boy howdy—special days celebrating foods. We rabbits would have to eat at least 1.5+ of the following daily, all the while remembering the admonition of Eat Flexitarian Day: eat more fruit, whole grains, and vegetables, but eat less meat and fish. The Flexitarian Diet is second only to the Mediterranean Diet for overall ranking because it’s simple, healthy, and a straight forward way of eating. Some foods to incorporate and celebrate are Fresh Fruit and Vegetables, Cucumber, Lemon, and Mango.

Okazaki Shrine, Kyoto dedicated to Rabbits

I like to organize, a trait that used to drive my dear old rabbit mother crazy. I’d put all the drinking glasses of the same size together on the same shelf, while she’d put them up willy nilly, even though they wouldn’t all fit on one shelf if all of them were clean. This is just another example of mother rabbits being realistic, since they know their thirsty rabbit kits will dirty up another glass before the dishwashing is done. I also like to arrange my paint palette in rainbow order, but don’t talk to me about my desk. It’s a mess. At least my spices are in alphabetical order.

June’s menu celebrates World Milk Day. An ice cold glass of milk will go well with any of these National Day Foods: Donuts, Hazelnut Cake, Chocolate Macaroons, Applesauce Cake, German Chocolate Cake, Peanut Butter Cookies, Apple Strudel, Chocolate Eclairs, Fudge, and Cherry Tarts.

Or maybe you’d rather have your sweet treat with some form of ice cream. June celebrates the National Days of Rocky Road and Chocolate Ice Cream, not to mention Ice Cream Cake Day. You can swill your ice cream in a soft drink on Ice Cream Soda Day or enjoy a Black Cow Day: root beer and vanilla ice cream float. Of course if you’re a rabbit who wants your ice cream straight up, but sipped, National Vanilla Milkshake Day was meant for you.

National Iced Tea Day is June 10, but down south, every day is Iced Tea Day. June also covers the menu with national days for eggs, cheese, and veggie burgers. You can make a whole meal out of the national days of corn on the cob, catfish, and onion rings. Please make sure to observe Eat Your Vegetables Day, with Herbs and Spices, and try a Meal Prep Day while you’re at it.

Since America is a great melting pot of many peoples, we have many food cultures. June celebrates several culinary traditions:
Egg Roll Day, Falafel Day, Tapas Day, Sushi Day, Smoothie Day, and Food Truck Day. Get your passport stamped as you leave the cafeteria and please don’t remove your shoes on the way to the dessert counter.

For dessert there’s nothing like seasonal foods. Enjoy National Strawberry Shortcake and Strawberry Parfait Days, or my all time, any time, National Chocolate Pudding Day, or try a new Candy during June or Frozen Yogurt. For a milder taste, go with National Tapioca Day. You also can try the famous Japanese Bubble Tea drink, which has sweet tapioca bubbles as an ingredient. This isn’t like regular iced tea, for the resistant starch of the tapioca bubbles needs time to digest. You don’t want to be famous for “X-ray of stomach shows mass of 100 undigested boba balls.” (Google it!)

How To Make Tapioca Pearls At Home – Experiences

Listen to this rabbit so you don’t have to double up on National Prune Day for a reason, but enjoy then for their sweetness, fiber, antioxidants and minerals. Mostly they keep you “regular as clockwork,” with no straining or efforts. This is a good thing if you’ve overindulged on Detroit-Style Pizza Day or under hydrated on National Martini and Olive Days.

But enough of foods! This rabbit hasn’t eaten this much since well, Memorial Day weekend! My family always took any and every gathering as an excuse to feast. I don’t know if it was because my rabbit mom and dad survived the Great Depression or because the generations of my extended family were all Methodists, but if food was available, we were there. And we brought a covered dish if we were traveling to somewhere else. Folks brought food to us when we hosted, but that was how life was when I was a young rabbit. Sharing was our caring.

My dad was a master chef, as long as he stood over the back yard grill. He had charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid down to a science. Never ever did he squirt fluid onto the hot coals—that was asking for his own burnt flesh. Mr. Safety was his other name. He wielded the fork in his right hand and an empty ketchup bottle filled with water in his left hand. If the grease drippings flared up, the repurposed water bottle went into action with a well focused stream to knock it down. He never hit it so hard the fire went out.

Dad even cooked on Father’s Day, because he was The Grill Master. Even when the family bought a gas grill for my birthday, I kid you not, daddy was thrilled because he’d be able to cook for his favorite girl rabbit when I came home from college. Fathers show their love in many different ways. We children can’t design how our fathers show love or order their behaviors. Dads aren’t Burger King hamburgers with cheese, no salt, and no tomatoes. We can’t have them our way.

My dad certainly had a way of cheering me up when I was sure my world was falling apart when I was young. “Cheer up, it could be worse,” he’d say.

“Yeah? How much worse?” I was given to catastrophic thinking as a young rabbit. Everything was a “hair on fire” moment. (In hindsight, most of these weren’t even singed eyebrow moments.)

“Put a bit of this in your mouth,” he said, handing me a bite of his chewing tobacco.

I put it in my mouth and began to chew. As my saliva mixed with the cut tobacco, a bitter taste flooded my mouth. My face twisted every which way possible without leaving my skull.

“Oh, whatever you do, don’t swallow the juice!” He admonished.
“You do this for fun?” I asked.
He laughed, “There are always worse things in life you’ve yet to experience. You can spit it out in the cup now if you want.”

Oh, and spit now I did want. I’m certain nothing is worse than a mouthful of acrid tobacco juice. If I can take that, I can take anything. But I don’t have to endure punishment willingly. I can choose not to suffer. I share this gnostic wisdom, known only to a few, and passed down by word and mouth, literally. I don’t recommend you try it for yourself.

The school of hard knocks is an expensive degree. My daddy had many words of wisdom, not all of which I heeded. “Always have a job before you leave the job you’re in,” is the one I never paid attention to until I became an itinerant minister. Then sometimes I was sent away before I was ready to leave, and sometimes I stayed when people were ready to see me go. Such is life in the Methodist appointment system.

One of my “fathers in the faith” reminded me and others, “You will meet the same people on your way up in ministry as you will on your way down. Consider this as you take your leave of one place and go to another. Don’t forget from where you came. You’ll go back there one day.”

I thought about this one day when one of my church members told me the two largest attendance days were the first and last Sundays of every pastor their church had. When I asked why, he replied, “Because folks first come to see if the preaching is any good and then come to hear how terrible they’ve been.”

Perhaps others continued that pattern after me, but I saw no reason to continue it. Every rabbit, even the most wayward or recalcitrant, will grow gradually in three years. If I couldn’t see evidence of spiritual growth and changes of heart in their lives, I wasn’t worth my salt. I left them in tears, reminding them of who they were and what they had become. I also spoke of the power that would be with them always as they continued their upward path to greater things yet to come.

Attic Black Figure Ware Attributed to the Phrynos Painter:
Kylix, Little Master Lip, Early Archaic Period, ca. 555 – 550 B.C., British Museum, London.

Since ancient times, fathers have always given their children sage advice. Even the Greek gods of myth and time, before the age of philosophers and kings, believed in fathers as the source of wisdom. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang full grown from the head of Zeus, the King of all the gods on Mount Olympus. Perhaps the Greeks were onto something, for wisdom is acquired by those who survive their rash youthful learning experiences.

Some father figures would keep their children from all harm by never allowing a child take appropriate, age level risks and not preparing them gradually for these rites of passage. We don’t throw a new born child into the deep end of a pool and expect them to swim. Instead, we bathe them, wade them, let them kick as we pull them around the shallow end of the pool, and finally we get their faces underwater to blow bubbles so they can learn to breathe correctly. Finally we’ll teach them how to use their arms in coordination with their feet and breathing so they can travel across the pool.

If we let them on a motorized vehicle, a child is safer on a sanctioned go cart track than on a neighborhood street. This is because he or she would be racing in smaller horse powered carts, with age similar racers. As a wise parent, you’d have to decide if your child has the maturity, focus, and discipline to handle not only her own car, but to be aware of his position relative to other carts on the track. Also, does your child have his emotions under control and is she willing to learn from her mistakes?

Greek mythology has an instructive story of Helios, the sun god, who couldn’t say no to his son Phaeton’s request to drive the sun carriage drawn by the fiery steeds. In Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 750 ff, Helios instructs his son:

“Keep to this route; my wheeltracks there show plain. Press not too low nor strain your course to high; too high, you’ll burn heaven’s palaces; too low, the earth; the safest course lies in between. And neither rightwards towards the twisting Anguis (Snake) nor leftwards swerve to where the Ara (Altar) lies. Hold in the midst! To fortune I resign the rest to guide with wiser wit than yours. See, dewy Nox (Night) [Nyx] upon the Hesperian shore even while I speak has reached her goal. No more may we delay; our duty calls; the day dawns bright, all shadows fled. Come take the reins!

Or take, if yet your stubborn heart will change, my counsel, not my chariot, while you may, while still on firm foundations here you stand before you mount between my chariot wheels, so ignorant, so foolish!–and let me give the world light that you may safely see.”

As in all Greek myths, this didn’t end well for Phaeton, for he couldn’t control the high spirited steeds. As the chariot ricocheted too near the earth, scorching it, and too high in the sky, burning the stars, Zeus blasted the boy with a thunderbolt to save the earth from harm and placed him among the stars in the constellation The Charioteer. His body fell to earth into the river Po. Once again it’s a reminder the middle path is safest and best.

Canadian soldiers on D-Day read message on their plane

As we polish off the last of the leftovers from Memorial Day, we celebrate D-Day, which commemorates June 6, 1944, the day the Allies invaded Normandy from England during World War II. Every military order has had a day and hour designation since 1918, but this battle on the five French beaches was so large and so difficult to organize, it’s the one we know as “D-Day.” Not only was there a need for a long day, a day near a full moon to guide ships/airborne troops, and strong tides for an amphibious assault, but the Allies had to coordinate politically and militarily to get everyone on board. Eisenhower’s personal notes give us an inkling of the troubles of this endeavor (link below). To date it remains the largest amphibious invasion in history and marked the beginning of the end of World War II. It also marked the end of the Nazi regime led by Hitler, which was responsible for the death of over 6 million Jews.

Two roses and two U.S. flags on Omaha Beach in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, Normandy, on June 5, 2019.

As a small rabbit, who’s startled at any sharp noise and frightened by even the shadows of passing clouds, since it might be a hungry predator, the thoughts of wars set me to trembling, trembling, trembling, like the lyrics of the old slave spiritual, “Steal Away:”

“Green trees are bending, poor sinners stand trembling; The trumpet sounds it in my soul, I ain’t got long to stay here.”

Yet appeasing tyrants never ends well, as Winston Churchill noted: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear greatly that the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar ever more loudly, ever more widely.”

Speaking of storms, the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, and we can expect the first named storm to form in mid to late June. We rabbits who enjoy a beach vacation always need to keep a weather eye out. Not only do we need to be aware of the intense sun, especially for our baby rabbits, but if the city officials issue evacuation orders for extreme weather, we ought to leave, even if we give up vacation days. While we’re at the beach, or the lake or poolside this summer, we can read or listen to books. June is audiobook appreciation month, but books with pages are more likely better suited to beaches, since high heat and small grains of sands can adversely affect expensive cellphones, tablets, and readers.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia

Another way we can pass our summer and stretch our minds is to try new experiences. June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month. If we only exercise the same brain paths, but fail to build new ones, our brains become “clogged up.” This is rabbit speak for what doctors call Tau protein tangles. Dementia seldom only causes Alzheimer’s-related changes in the brain. Any number of vascular issues—problems that affect blood vessels, such as beta-amyloid deposits in brain arteries, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), and mini-strokes—may also be at play. Vascular problems may lead to reduced blood flow and oxygen to the brain, as well as a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, which usually protects the brain from harmful agents while allowing in glucose and other necessary factors.

My dad, a brilliant doctor, had Alzheimer’s disease in his later life. While he remembered all of his medical training, he knew none of his family in his later years. He also confused my large poster of Captain Picard I had taped on the parsonage back door with an actual person. I kept “Picard” there as a reminder to MAKE IT SO, but daddy thought I had a strange balding man standing in my laundry room.

Make it so—said the strange man in my laundry room

In someone with Alzheimer’s, a faulty blood-brain barrier prevents glucose (energy) from reaching the brain and prevents the clearing away of toxic beta-amyloid and tau proteins. This results in inflammation, which adds to vascular problems in the brain. Because it appears that Alzheimer’s is both a cause and consequence of vascular problems in the brain, researchers are seeking interventions to disrupt this complicated and destructive cycle. All the more reason for us to eat more plants, less fried foods, more complex carbohydrates, and fewer animal fats.

Baked chicken, roasted veggies and corn on the cob

June is also Professional Wellness Month and National Men’s Health Month. America workers tend to get about 11 days of paid vacation and 6 paid holidays per year, but more than half of these reported not using all their days off. Even those energizer bunnies who have unlimited paid time off tend to take only 10 days of vacation, and nearly half of them work at some point in time during their vacation.

When I went on vacation, I told my church secretary to call me if the church burned down or someone died. They should be able to handle most anything else. Most of what I was going to do from some distant location was encourage them and help arrange a substitute if I couldn’t get back in time. God may be available all the time, but small rabbits and vulnerable humans must rest and restore their energies to be ready for the next excitement that’s sure to come.

If you haven’t yet planned your summer vacation, you’re in luck. June is Great Outdoors Month and National Camping Month. You can take your rabbit family to the Oceans or to the Rivers, or you can visit a Zoo and an Aquarium. It’s also Women’s Golf Month, but you can take the rest of the rabbit family with you and have a good time on the links. If you want to stick closer to home, remember June is a fine time to enjoy the exercise in the dirt. It’s Perennial Gardening Month and National Rose Month. Do a service for your garden during National Pollinators Month. Plant basil and dill alongside your tomato plants to discourage hornworms. The scents also attract pollinators like butterflies and other beneficial insects.

On a personal note, I’m looking forward to a summer full of crisp lettuce and tomato sandwiches on toasted whole wheat bread with avocado slices. In fact, that sounds so good, I may have to have one now, since I don’t have time to make a hazelnut cake. Here’s to books, beaches, and the bronzed bodies of summer.

Joy and peace,

CORNELIA

June Holidays and Observances 2023: Full Calender
https://www.today.com/life/holidays/june-holidays-and-observances-rcna76138

2023 NCAHM Official Book List – CaribbeanReads
https://www.caribbeanreads.com/2023-ncahm-book-list/

When is the first day of summer? Summer solstice dates explained.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/04/07/when-is-first-day-summer/11556538002/

Season Definition: When Do They Start?
https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html

What Is the Flexitarian Diet? – Cleveland Clinic
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-is-the-flexitarian-diet/

NATIONAL BLACK COW DAY – June 10, 2023 – National Today
https://nationaltoday.com/national-black-cow-day/

How To Make Tapioca Pearls At Home – Experiences
https://experiences.japancrate.com/blogs/news/how-to-make-tapioca-pearls-at-home

Creamy Coleslaw with Prunes (Ready in 5 Minutes!) – Ignite Nutrition
https://ignitenutrition.ca/blog/unlock-the-power-of-prunes/

Should I Let My Kid Drive a Go-Kart? – Our Definitive Guide | Utah Motorsports Campus
https://www.utahmotorsportscampus.com/should-i-let-my-kid-drive-a-go-kart-our-definitive-guide/

PHAETHON – Son of the Sun-God of Greek Mythology
https://www.theoi.com/Titan/Phaethon.html

Unknown Artist: Fall of Phaeton, Greek marble Roman sarcophagus, Ca. 150-170 AD., Height: 62 cm; length 220 cm.,
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.

Eisenhower Library: Conditions in Normandy
https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/d-day/1944-06-03-conditions-in-normandy.pdf

Steal Away Lyrics
https://www.cusd80.com/cms/lib6/AZ01001175/Centricity/Domain/1509/Steal%20Away%20Steal%20Away%20song%20lyrics.pdf

An Appeaser Is One Who Feeds a Crocodile, Hoping It Will Eat Him Last – Quote Investigator®
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/18/crocodile/

Tropical Cyclone Climatology
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/

What Happens to the Brain in Alzheimer’s Disease? | National Institute on Aging
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-happens-brain-alzheimers-disease

Average PTO In USA & Other PTO Statistics (2023) – Forbes Advisor
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/pto-statistics/

10 Tips for Building a Pollinator Garden | The Old Farmer’s Almanac
https://www.almanac.com/building-pollinator-garden

Rabbit! Rabbit!

arkansas, art, chocolate, Easter, Faith, Food, Garden of Gethsemane, Good Friday, holidays, Holy Thursday, john wesley, Love, Painting, photography, rabbits, Salvador Dali, Spirituality, Spring Equinox, United Methodist Church

Welcome to April 2023

April Fool! Caught you! Were you the prankster or the pranked? Even an institution as stuffy as the British Broadcasting Corporation isn’t above pranking the public on the first day of April. If a fool and his money are soon parted, then whatever the BBC was selling, they were having a jolly good time in their advertising department. You can watch their mini documentary on Flying Penguins below:

When I was at Perkins Seminary, we editors of the weekly newsletter had a tradition of an April Surprise. This followed the practice of the former Babylonian Schismatic, which was an alternative, satirical student newsletter published occasionally between 1981 and 1988.

One year, when I was coeditor, it was more of an April Debacle. My partner in crime and I were sure the beach ball bouncing off the usual chapel steeple logo would be enough to clue our community into the prank. However, we failed to realize how little sleep our fellow students actually got during school weeks, how seriously they took the printed word, and worst of all, that our newsletter also went to bishops’ widows in faraway places. This last was what got us into the real trouble.

Our faux reports of Perkins losing its accreditation due to shenanigans of prior graduates, who were in the news at the time, had graduate students storming the dean’s office. Even worse, the bishop’s widows were calling him to inquire what kind of school he was overseeing. The fact schools can only lose accreditation for their own failures (and not the trespasses of former students or faculty) never crossed anyone’s mind in the ensuing uproar. So of course, we criminals wrote handwritten letters of apology to the widows and printed retractions in the next newsletter for the students. I now understand why my mother said I sometimes take things too seriously. Still, I’ve have found others who make me look like a giggle queen.

Speaking of giggles, although the historical roots of April Fool’s Day are shrouded in mystery, the British, who are mostly known for their dry wit and stiff upper lip, seem to enjoy this holiday to excess. Especially at the BBC, which back in 1957, produced a fascinating prank documentary on the Swiss Artisanal Spaghetti Industry. They showed a Swiss family harvesting ripe spaghetti strands from their spaghetti bushes. At the time because of rationing, spaghetti wasn’t widely available. After 1956 in the British Isles, Italian companies opened spaghetti factories and Italian immigrants opened restaurants. The British developed a taste for this food. As a result, some British families were so enthusiastic, they wanted to purchase their own spaghetti bushes for a home garden. Others were unhappy to be pranked. This may be one of the first times the medium of television was used to stage an April Fool’s Day hoax.

Moveable Feasts: Passover and Easter

Israel was an ancient agricultural culture and followed a lunar calendar, so sighting the full moon was important. Passover is always pegged to the Hebrew calendar, which is based on the lunar cycle. It starts in the middle of the month of Nisan, when the moon is full, typically falling in March or April of the modern Gregorian calendar. As a result, Passover typically begins very close to Easter. Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. However, due to the shorter Hebrew calendar, sometimes it gets a leap month to keep it in tune with the seasons. In 2024, when the leap month plays a part, we’ll have an early Easter on March 21st, but Passover won’t start until April 22nd.

These religious holidays are forever entertwined because of the historical events of the Last Supper, which we assume was a ritual meal or Seder, and the crucifixion on a Friday, which required Christ’s body to be taken down from the cross due to the beginning of Passover at sunset.The Last Supper took place on a Thursday night, even though the actual Passover didn’t begin until Friday night.

Dali: The Sacrament of the Last Supper, 1955, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.

As Wesley’s Notes on The New Testament observe, “Jesus took the bread—the bread or cake, which the master of the family used to divide among them, after they had eaten the passover. The custom our Lord now transferred to a nobler use. This bread is, that is, signifies or represents my body, according to the style of the sacred writers.”

We know this because Jesus was arrested in Gesthemane after this meal and then taken to the Roman Governor Pilate on Friday morning, the day of Preparation for the Passover. John 18:28 reminds us how the temple priests “…took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover.”

Early Handdrawn Valentine, 1814, writing in an unending circle

The Jews in the first century kept faithfulness according to laws of separation and purity, so they kept away from unbelievers on holy days. This was the biblical practice of the time. Early Christians continued this practice until Paul began his outreach to the Greek and Roman citizens of the world. When in the later gospel of John (14:15) Christ says, “if ye love me, keep my commandments, Wesley’s commentary understands this to mean: “Immediately after faith he exhorts to love and good works.” This is why we United Methodists practice an open table at Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, for all who love the Lord and desire to be in love and fellowship with their neighbors are welcome at his table. We don’t exclude anyone, for God includes all people into the circle of God’s love.

Since Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, this makes Easter a “moveable feast.” Unlike a picnic, for which we tote our fixings from our kitchen to a park or to the countryside, or unlike a house to house “progressive dinner,” Easter is called “moveable” because it’s not on a fixed date like Christmas or New Year’s Day.

Baked Ham with Canned Pineapple Rings and Cloves

My family’s Easter feast always centered about a baked ham, often covered with canned pineapple rings and studded with cloves. We were a modern American 1950-60’s family and Betty Crocker reigned in my mother’s kitchen. Just this week I saw a tv advertisement of a family feast with this very same baked ham. I suppose when the economy gets dicey, people pull out old familiar recipes from the great-great-grandmother’s kitchen. Since I have a new great-grandchild on the way, and a knitting project started, I can safely say, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. I’ve seen the sonogram images!

2012-2022 Top Ten Cities for Extreme Weather Warnings issued by National Weather Service

“April showers bring May flowers” is an ancient rhyme. Unfortunately, these showers also bring pollens of every kind, since trees and flowers both acquire crowns of glory. The Old Farmer’s’ Almanac notes while November has a bit more rain in store for Arkansas than April usually brings, this month’s warmer weather favors conditions for flowers to bloom and trees to bud. While we might tire of the storms and the havoc they wrack upon the populace, we’re always thankful if they only cause damage to property and don’t take human lives.

Across North America, the pollen season has lengthened by 20 days since 1990. Pollen concentrations have also increased by 21 percent over the past three decades. This means some of us have been doctoring ourselves or visiting the RD—real doctor—since February. The stubbornest of us waited until almost April because we were convinced we could heal ourselves. If you still have no energy and are grumpy to boot after a month, you too need a RD. Better living through chemistry with put a perk back into your bunny hop.

Speaking of the weather, I have seen many years now of Easter sunrise services, and even more later noontime Easter feasts. One thing ties them all together: no matter how cute my spring outfit is, no one ever sees it because I’m always wearing a raincoat or a winter coat over it. My guess is rain and cool weather will come and our egg hunts will likely be inside. As long as there’s a dark chocolate Easter rabbit for my personal gratification, I’ll be happy. I discovered last year’s version stored in the cabinet, so I’d better make some chocolate chip cookies soon.

There’s plenty of silly or merchandising holidays in April, but you can read about them at the link below my name. Until May, I remain your April Fool…

Joy, peace, and chocolate rabbits for everyone,

Cornelia

April Daily Holidays, National, International. Holiday Insights.
https://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/april.htm

Why Easter and Passover are observed on different dates each year
https://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/arizona/2018/03/28/why-easter-and-passover-have-different-dates-each-year/466341002/

The worst cities in the U.S. for allergies
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/16/allergy-season-pollen-count-climate/

BBC Flying Penguin Documentary April Fool Prank
https://youtu.be/9dfWzp7rYR4

BBC 1957 Spaghetti Documentary April Fool Prank
https://youtu.be/8scpGwbvxvI

BBC ON THIS DAY | 1 | 1957: BBC fools the nation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm

No spuds please, we’re British
https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,371547,00.html

Is April Really The Month of Showers? – Farmers’ Almanac
https://www.farmersalmanac.com/april-showers-bring-may-flowers-34814

Where the Most Weather Warnings Are Issued in the U.S. | Weather Underground
https://www.wunderground.com/article/safety/thunderstorms/news/2022-03-18-most-national-weather-service-warnings-us

Rabbit! Rabbit!

arkansas, art, Astrology, Civil War, cosmology, elections, Faith, Forgiveness, haiku, inspiration, Lost Cause, Painting, Pi Day, rabbits, renewal, sleep, Spirituality, Spring Equinox, St. Patrick’s Day

Welcome to March 2023

This rabbit was shivering during the last week of February.

March is here and the wild hares of the rabbit clan have come to visit. I’m shivering on a cold, dreary, and rainy day, but I’m about to have a cup of steaming hot tea and put dinner on the stove. While I waited for the water to boil, I visited the open AI project out of curiosity. My old daddy used to say, “curiosity killed the cat,” but I think he was trying to keep me safe by not poking my nose into some dangerous places. Without curiosity, we never learn anything new or stretch our horizons. We’d live a sad, constricted life if we always stayed inside the lines and never pushed the boundaries.

The chat bot took my name and combined it with that of Cornelia Adele Strong Fassett, who painted the Florida Case Before the Electoral Commission, to describe the importance of “Cornelia DeLee, artist.” Also according to the chatbot, I am long dead, so I must be communicating from “yonder.” Fassett’s painting was about the contested presidential election of 1876.

The Florida Case before the Electoral Commission
Oil on canvas, by Cornelia Adele Fassett
This painting now hangs on the third floor of the Capitol.

In January, 1877, when the Electoral College met, 20 votes were contested, but neither side would concede the election. Congress passed a law empowering the Electoral Commission at the end of January. Ten days of deliberations passed before the 20 votes passed to the Republican candidate, an act which the Democrats protested until they received assurances federal soldiers would leave the Southern states. With Reconstruction at an end, Congress declared Rutherford B. Hayes the new President of the United States on March 2, only two days before his term began.

The Civil War and the Reconstruction years have marked our nation with an ongoing trauma, which has passed from generation to generation. At some point in time, we’ll have to heal, for continually pouring salt into that old wound will keep it festering and it won’t ever heal. Then we’ll pass it down to another generation once more. However, if scripture has any truth to teach us, humankind continues to reenact the sins of our ancestors, even when we know their stories and have the God given gifts of redemption from these shackles of death and shame. But now this rabbit is preaching, and some would say, “meddling once again.”

Update: Heather Cox Richardson, a noted writer of American history, reminds us once again how Southerners rewrite our history to make us more heroic and powerful. The Federal Army didn’t leave the south right away, but stayed in some states for awhile. See the note below.

I’ll change the subject. I’m not much on poetry, but I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to write a “Poem in Praise of March.” After all, World Poetry Day is March 21, so I thought I’d give the ChatAI a run for its money (it’s free right now, while in training stage). The Artificial Intelligence project was delighted to instantly produce the following example:

March, the month of windswept skies,
A time when winter softly dies.
The earth awakens from her sleep,
As days grow long and nights grow deep.

The snows of winter start to thaw,
And nature’s beauty starts to draw
A tapestry of green and gold,
As springtime’s treasures now unfold.

The birds return with joyful sound,
Their melodies now all around.
The trees bud out, the flowers bloom,
And life returns to end the gloom.

March, the month of change and hope,
A time to cast off winter’s scope.
The promise of new life and growth,
As nature’s beauty takes its oath.

So let us praise this month of light,
For all the wonders it brings to sight.
And may we cherish every day,
As we welcome spring in every way.

I was so amazed the Artificial Intelligence ChatBot could spit this out so quickly, I typed in, “Thank you.”

AI Enhanced Image by Jos Avery: Erik’s Escape

It immediately answered, “You’re welcome! I’m glad you enjoyed the poem. If you have any other questions or requests, feel free to ask!” I quickly closed the application before it became sentient and asked for my hand in marriage or social security number and tried to enroll me in a monthly cryptocurrency investment program. Yikes!

Speaking of poetry, even the folks at Bloomberg News are writing haikus about global food shortages:

Onion shortage looms.
Prices rise, nutrition wanes,
Governments take aim.

When I was a child, my brothers and I amused ourselves by lining up dominoes in artful patterns all morning long. After lunch and before our required afternoon nap, we’d touch the first domino in line, and have a wicked joy of watching our entire morning’s work fall one after another. A food shortage (or a toilet paper shortage) happens much the same way in our global economy. Onion prices are still soaring across the globe and fuelling inflation, so countries like Morocco, Turkey and Kazakhstan have taken action and secured supplies.

Close to 40kg of smuggled produce was discovered in the luggage of Philippine Airlines crew members on Friday.
(photo credit: PHILIPPINE CUSTOMS OFFICE VIA WALLA NEWS)

Because onion prices are going up due to scarce supply, the price of other fruits and vegetables (such as carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, and apples) also are rising and hampering their availability across the globe, according to the United Nations and the World Bank. In fact, prices have increased so much that onions briefly cost more than meat in the Philippines, and some flight attendants were caught smuggling them out of the Middle East.

This didn’t end well for either the attendants or the produce, since the food was sent out for destruction (it’s illegal to import food, except through proper customs) and the personnel got reprimands and retraining. Word to the wise: hoarding onions isn’t a good idea, since whole, raw onions will last two to three months when stored in a cool, dry place (between 45 and 55 degrees F). Places that provide these conditions may include your cellar, pantry, unheated basement, or garage. Usually, at room temperature, onions last only 2 to 3 weeks. Over the long term, the frugal shopper will buy some scarce items at a higher prices and other items at lower cost when the product is in season and at a surplus. The average price over a year will even out.

Former President Carter signing First Women’s History Week Proclamation

March is Women’s History Month. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th, 1980 as National Women’s History Week. In 1987, Congress passed Public Law 100-9, designating March as “Women’s History Month.” Every president since then has recognized the gifts, graces, and achievements of America’s women by presidential proclamation. Other important women’s days in March we recognize are International Women’s Day (March 8), Harriet Tubman Day and National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 10).

The Jewish celebration of Purim begins on March 6 at sundown and ends on the 7th at sundown. The festival recalls Queen Esther’s faithfulness to God and God’s saving providence for God’s marginalized people. We should always remember God’s grace is wider than ours, even if the faithful seemed to be “assimilating to the current culture.”

Daylight Savings Time begins March 12, with all of us rabbits settling our clocks forward one hour before we go to bed the night before. If you have difficulty remembering which direction, there’s a motto for this event: “Spring forward, and Fall back.” No one falls forward and springs back—silly rabbits maybe, but not the smart rabbits, who have the good sense to “Spring forward, and Fall back.”

National Pi Day March 14— Not all pies are square

The Ides of March 15 were bad luck for Julius Caesar, but originally the Ides of March once signified the new year, which meant celebrations and rejoicing. Two years before his death at an assassin’s hand, Caesar himself had changed the Roman calendar so the Romans celebrated the new year in January. Some people really don’t like change at all. Plus they don’t like military dictatorships.

People celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on March 17 all over the world, whether they’re Irish or not. While the San Antonio River runs green downtown, Hot Springs National Park will have its First Ever 20th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade on the 98 foot long Bridge Street, which is the world’s shortest street in everyday operational use.

Map of Hot Springs St. Patrick’s Day Festivities

Spring Equinox on March 20 can’t come soon enough for this rabbit. Just knowing the light will become stronger with each passing day is a medicine for my spirits. So what if the pollen follows soon after? Eventually, that too will be history and we bunnies will find something else to fuss about. After all, nothing is certain except for change. None of us can stop the circuit of the stars in the heavens above or cease the changing seasons.

We can adjust to these great cycles of change, just as we can grow in love for one another and learn to forgive both ourselves (for our falling short of perfection) and others for harming ourselves. If we rabbits wait till the last moment for our death bed reconciliations, we may not have the time or opportunity to make amends with the ones from whom we’ve estranged ourselves.

If you think you’ll be foolish doing this, I suggest you desensitize yourself and celebrate International Talk Like William Shatner Day on March 22. I asked ChatGPT for a haiku in the voice of William Shatner. On the third try, I got something I thought resembled his breathless cadence and broken phrase delivery. I could almost hear him emphatically delivering the words GO and MUST!

Breathless stars above,
Silent darkness, vast and deep,
Boldly go, we must.

Ramadan starts during the evening of March 23 and lasts until sundown on Thursday, April 20. Muslims commemorate the gift of the Koran to Muhammad by fasting if physically able, declaring their faith, prayers, charity, and pilgrimage..

BRITON RIVIÈRE, UNA AND LION, NINETEENTH CENTURY

Remember, if March comes in as a lamb, it will go out as a lion, or so the ancient weather proverb goes. The saying may have its origin in the stars, for at this time of year, Leo is the rising sign; by April, it’s Aries. (“Kid” or “ram” doesn’t have quite the same ring as “lamb,” though.) Also, this is the season Jesus arrives as the sacrificial lamb, but will return as the Lion of Judah. Both mean, weather-wise, a false spring.

The Beast with Two Horns like a Lamb by Albrecht Dürer We don’t want March to enter or exit in this Apocalyptic vision.

To sum up, as I finish up this note on the last day of February, the high today will be near 80F and I’ll most likely turn my air conditioner back on before March comes to visit. Looking ahead to March, the Weather Channel outlook has only three days in the 70’s for my location, so Mr. Air Conditioner won’t get much of a work out. I only see one night in the 30’s, so even Mr. Heater will get light workouts in March. As one wag put it on their restaurant sign:

That was February; I don’t think think we’ll see 80’s in March

Until next month, I hope you have onions and potatoes in abundance, and you enjoy green eggs and ham, or green beer, or green tea.

Joy, Peace, and welcome to Springtime,

Cornelia

NOTE from Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, March 2, 2023—this corrects my research.

What did not happen in 1877, either before or after the inauguration, was the removal of troops from the South.

That legend came from a rewriting of the history of Reconstruction in 1890 by fourteen southern congressmen. In their book Why the Solid South? Or Reconstruction and Its Results, they argued that Black voting after the Civil War had allowed Black people to “dominate” white southerners and virtually bankrupt the region and that virtuous white southerners had pushed them from the ballot box and “redeemed” the South. Contemporaries had identified the end of Reconstruction as 1870, with the readmission of Georgia to the United States. But Why the Solid South identified the end of Reconstruction as the end of Republican rule in each state.

In 1906, former steel baron James Ford Rhodes gave a date to that process. In his famous seven-volume history of the United States, he said that in April 1877, Hayes had ended Reconstruction by returning all the southern states to “home rule.” In his era, that was a political term referring to the return of power in the southern states to Democrats, but over time that phrase got tangled up with what did happen in April 1877.

During the chaos after the election, President U.S. Grant had ordered troops to protect the Republican governors in the Louisiana and South Carolina statehouses. When he took office, Hayes told Republican governors in South Carolina and Louisiana that he could no longer let federal troops protect their possession of their statehouses when their Democratic rivals had won the popular vote.

Under orders from Hayes, the troops guarding those statehouses marched away from their posts around the statehouses and back to their home stations in April 1877. They did not leave the states, although a number of troops would be deployed from southern bases later that year both to fight wars against Indigenous Americans in the West and to put down the 1877 Great Railroad Strike. That mobilization cut even further the few troops in the region: in 1876, the Department of the South had only about 1,586 men including officers. Nonetheless, southerners fought bitter congressional battles to get the few remaining troops out of the South in 1878–1879, and they lost.

The troops did not leave the U.S. South in 1877 as part of a deal to end Reconstruction.

It matters that we misremember that history. Generations of Americans have accepted the racist southern lawmakers’ version of our past by honoring the date they claimed to have “redeemed” the South. The reality of Reconstruction was not one in which Black voters bankrupted the region by taking tax dollars from white taxpayers to fund roads and schools and white voters stepped in to save things; it was the story of an attempt to establish racial equality and the undermining of that attempt with the establishment of a one-party state that benefited a few white men at the expense of everyone else.

Clarence C. Clendenen, “President Hayes’ ‘Withdrawal’ of the Troops: An Enduring Myth,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 70 (October 1969): 240-250.

Cornelia Adele Fassett | History of American Women
https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2015/08/cornelia-adele-fassett.html

ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue
https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

“Shortage of Onions Threatens a New Chapter in Global Food Crisis” by Bloomberg News

Onion shortage could trigger a global food crisis. Here’s what’s happening – India Today
https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/onion-shortage-global-food-crisis-whats-happening-across-the-world-2339214-2023-02-24

Gnomologia: adagies and proverbs; wise sentences and witty sayings, ancient and modern, foreign and British : Fuller, Thomas, 1654-1734, comp :
Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/gnomologiaadagi00conggoog

Here’s How Long Onions Last if You Store Them Properly
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/how-to-store-onions/

March Holidays and Observances 2023: Full Calendar
https://www.today.com/life/holidays/march-holidays-and-observances-rcna64226

Viral “Photographer” Reveals His Images Were AI-Generated
https://hyperallergic.com/803915/viral-photographer-reveals-his-images-were-ai-generated/

From the Shadows to the Light

architecture, art, Carl Jung, change, Faith, Family, Fear, Food, greek myths, hope, inspiration, mystery, nature, New Year, purpose, rabbits, renewal, Roman Forum, shadows, Spirituality, Temple of Janus, Zeitgeist

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to 2023! This old bunny may not see the clock strike midnight, but I’m recovering from a bad cold. Rest is more important than ringing in the New Year. Every year has its own character.

Live with Optimism, even when the nights are long.

Zeitgeist is a word that comes straight from German — zeit means “time” and geist means spirit, so the “spirit of the time” is what’s going on culturally, religiously, or intellectually during a certain period. When it comes to the turn of the New Year, we bunnies wonder if our new broom will sweep clean or if the old broom will leave the same mess as always in our cozy rabbit dens.

Always use a New Broom on the New Year for Good Luck.

Are we filled with hope or with foreboding? Do these dark days and deep nights of winter fill us with a gloomy spirit? Or do the imperceptibly lengthening minutes of daytime give hope to the shadows the cold of winter has left in the depths of our souls? Or have the coastal grandmother bunnies among us learned to ignore all this stum and drang by blending their afternoon tea time into early evening wine tasting?

Everything a culture considers taboo, evil, or immoral typically ends up being proscribed or “consigned to the outer darkness.” From there it ends up inside us in what Carl Jung called “the Shadow,” or our inner “Satan,” as it were. Repressed and inhibited, it festers and rages in the darkness of our “unconscious.” Even in extreme cases, it takes on a quasi-autonomous existence of its own, occasionally intruding as the famous “voices in the head” or even as a multiple personality.

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde is a famous light and dark shadow character from fiction, but too often in real life we rabbits point out our own dark shadows in the lives of those we so easily demonize. As my wise old granddaddy rabbit would reprimand me, “When you point out the faults of others, you have three fingers pointing back at you.”

Luke 6:41
“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”

I always find life more refreshing on the first day of the year, perhaps because I don’t over indulge in strong drink as I once did in my wayward bunny youth. We bunnies all have a wayward youth, for how else would we know what the immature among us are getting into? My old daddy rabbit believed, “Experience was the greatest teacher of all time, as well as its most costly tutor.” Indeed, we remember the costliest lessons best of all. The young ones today say, “Go big or go home.” My grannie would say, “If you’re in for a penny, you might as well be in for a pound.” After all, everyone who participated, either in a small or large way, would be held accountable.

Janus: Bloodstone intaglio of Roman god of transition, passages, and new beginnings.

As I look back on old 2022, grizzled and worn out by conflicts both at home and abroad, I can understand why the ancients thought of Janus, for whom January’s named, as a two faced god. One face, which looked backwards, was lined, bearded, and craggy featured, while the forward looking face of the new year was youthful, smooth, and clean shaven. Every new year is fresh and clean as a beardless youth’s face, as well as untroubled by any recollection of pains or past memories. Most of us bunnies also have short memories, for we tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Rabbits have short term memories of around 4 minutes, but can remember bad experiences for longer periods, just as humans can.

Unknown Roman Artisan: Soldier’s Brooch in the Form of a Rabbit, 100–300 CE, Copper alloy with champlevé enamel, found in Britain, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

In Ancient Rome, as the poets Ovid and Horace recount, Janus was the god of war and peace. They differ as to whether the Temple of Janus was a prison for peace or war, but they both agree the prison was meant to maintain PAX ROMANA, or the great Roman Peace. If peace were impounded, peace would be guaranteed to the nation. If war were imprisoned, it wouldn’t rampage about to destroy the countryside. Just as Janus had two faces, Roman religion was open to multiple interpretations and meanings. Perhaps today, they’d be known as “freethinkers,” as opposed to “literalists” or “strict constructionists” in their interpretation of their ancient stories.

Seeing the Night Skies through Bunny Eyes

Maybe in 2023 we bunnies might want to look at different ways of thinking, instead of one fixed way. There’s a difference between a straight and narrow path and a rut. On the path we can still see other twists and turns, which might change the outcome of our experience and existence. In a rut we’re stuck for life, with no where out, until it becomes our grave. If the world is changing more quickly than is comfortable for us, I give the example of my old granddaddy again. He pushed a button to turn on one of the first electric lights in his home town and lived to see men walk on the moon. Be resilient, be adaptable, and embrace change. After all, we’re always changing, so the option of never changing is death.

Ancient Greek Black Figure Vase, Wasps Attacking Men Robbing Zeus’ Bee Hives for Honey, c. 540 BCE, British Museum, London.

Romans would celebrate January 1 by giving offerings to Janus in the hope of gaining good fortune for the new year. They believed their acts set the stage for the coming year, so it was a common practice to make a positive start to the year. Not only did they exchange well wishes and sweet gifts of figs and honey with one another, but according to the poet Ovid, most Romans also chose to work for at least part of New Year’s Day because they saw idleness as a bad omen for the rest of the year. If 1st century Romans were to drop into some of our 21st century celebrations by means of Dr. Who’s traveling blue Police Box, they would wonder how the barbarians, who sacked Rome in 455 CE, had managed to take over our modern New Year.

Some days I need to be in two places at once.

We toga wearing bunnies, who are long of tooth, know from experience the barbarians are always at the gate of our safe little gardens. Sometimes they’re even inside the gardens of delight, as Peter Rabbit and his Cottontail friends perpetually discover when Mr. McGregror chases them with a rake. If we cast a look back on 2022 with our rheumy eyes, we saw Russia attack Ukraine, an outrageous act which sent millions of people to emigrate from their the destroyed cities and ravaged countryside, with the hope of finding safe haven in another European country.

Mr. McGregor thinks Peter is a Barbarian, who has slipped through his impenetrable garden gate.

Across the pond, on our southern border, thousands of migrants have fled disaster and violence in their homelands, but even though the US economy is hurting for workers in our entry level jobs, they have difficulty getting in. Are these people actually “barbarians at the gate?” Or have we projected our Shadow Fears upon them because they are foreigners? We did this with the Japanese, who m we placed into Internment Camps in World War II, much to our disgrace. This bunny asks us to search our hearts in 2023 to see if our three fingers are pointing back at our own selves.

Think about how Woodstock symbolized the 1960s: Woodstock was part of the Zeitgeist of the 1960s. Whatever seems particular to or symbolic of a certain time is likely part of its Zeitgeist. I came home from college one Christmas wearing a necklace of tiny black and white seed beads, only to be greeted by my old fashioned daddy, “Are you a hippy now?” For him, any one thing represented the whole, for he grew up with the ancient bunny wisdom, “One bad apple spoils the bushel.” We were only reconciled when he realized I hadn’t lost my fondness for his beloved Cowboys football team.

If we can find one common interest in this strange and fraught world with those with whom we would be at war, then we might be able to come to peace with them. If we insist on all or nothing, no bunny will get anything. We all want to have endless days of peace and joy, but the life of a bunny also has days of struggle and sorrow.

Carl Jung, the great psychologist once said, “There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

We also have this promise from 1 Corinthians 10:13—

“No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

Many of my southern bunny kinfolks will eat a variety of this New Year’s Day meal: black eyed peas, ham, greens, and cornbread. We think every pea consumed equals another day of good luck. Of course, we’re not the only superstitious clan.

Our cousins in Japan, celebrating Ōmisoka, or New Year’s Eve, gather together to eat long noodles to cross over from one year to the next. At midnight, many visit shrines or temples for Hatsumōde. Shinto shrines prepare amazake, a sweet low alcohol drink, to pass out to crowds and most Buddhist temples have large cast bells that are struck once for each of the 108 earthly desires believed to cause human suffering.

I found some interesting New Year’s good luck traditions, which are practiced around the world. In Greece, folks hang onions outside on their front doors to ward off evil. On New Year’s Eve, Colombian households have a tradition, called agüero, of placing three potatoes under each family member’s bed—one peeled, one not, and the last one only partially. At midnight each person, with eyes closed, grabs for one. Depending on the potato they select, they can either expect a year of good fortune, financial struggle, or a mix of both.

Ruined House (suspected fruitcake damage)

In Ireland, people bang Christmas bread against the walls of their house for good luck. If any of you bunnies have a Christmas fruitcake still lying around, please choose another loaf to prevent damage to your walls. Good contractors are backed up and hard to find, especially around the holidays.

The Danes chunk plates at their friends’ doorsteps for good luck on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps all that darkness from the winter solstice makes my northern relatives harebrained, but we love them just the same. I suppose every bunny has some weird relatives.

Old bunny weather lore says, “The first 12 days of January foretell the weather for each month of the year.” Another way to forecast the weather for the coming year depends on the wind. The old bunnies are at odds as to when this poem should be recited, with some advocating for sunset on New Year’s Eve and others at the break of dawn on New Year’s Day. This bunny notes the poem mentions New Year’s Eve, and since none of our ancient bunnies had time traveling abilities, I’d think we are safe to practice this on the Eve at sunset, then go out to do our responsible reveling.

If New Year’s Eve the wind blows south
It betokens warmth and growth.
If west, much milk and fish in the sea.
If north, cold and storms there will be.
If east, the trees will bear much fruit.
If north east, then flee it, man and brute. Then throw your new year wishes to the wind!

My New Year’s wish for 2023 is for each and every one of my bunny friends to have a better year than last year. And especially to know deep in your hearts, each of you are God’s own beloved children. Remember this good word from Romans 8:28—

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

Joy, peace, and love each and every day in 2023,

CORNELIA

Multiple Interpretation of the Opening and Closing of the Temple of Janus:
A Misunderstanding of Ovid “Fasti” by S.J. Green, 1.281 on JSTOR
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4433099

5 Ancient New Year’s Celebrations – HISTORY
https://www.history.com/news/5-ancient-new-years-celebrations

15 New Year’s Traditions From Around the World | Glamour
https://www.glamour.com/story/new-years-eve-day-traditions

New Year’s Weather Folklore: Predicting Weather in the New Year | The Old Farmer’s Almanac
https://www.almanac.com/new-years-day-weather-folklore

The Zeitgeist and the Shadow | The Chrysalis https://longsworde.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/the-zeitgeist-and-the-shadow/

Rabbit! Rabbit!

Altars, architecture, art, Christmas, Creativity, Faith, holidays, hope, inspiration, Light of the World, Marcus Aurelius, Painting, photography, poverty, rabbits, renewal, Roman Forum, Saturnalia, Temple of Saturn, winter solstice

Welcome to December! While I was writing this blog, it was Black Friday in November, when many rabbit families were either shopping in person or online. I once did this with my dear rabbit mother, for she loved to shop. As a child of the Great Depression, the thrill of giving gifts, however small to all her friends, was a joy denied to her while growing up. Today we rabbits aren’t so much into giving gifts, but in sharing experiences. We’re making different choices. We aren’t rejecting our forebears’ decisions, but we have different values. As the writer of Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us, everything has its time:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

The holiday season begins earlier and earlier, or maybe I’m just an old rabbit having a fever dream. Last year the supply chain snafus were the Grinch that stole Christmas. Some of you rabbits may have been in a FIFA World Cup worthy soccer scrimmage last year at a big box discounter while trying to score one of the few PlayStations that managed to make its way from China to America on one of the large container ships that wasn’t lost at sea or stuck in the Suez Canal. The good news is the resulting logjam at the shipping docks has since been cleared and all the major retailers expect to get their holiday goods on time, compared to only 53% in 2021. We rabbits aren’t getting this news, however, so about half of us are pessimistic about being able to find our desired gifts in stock.

On March 23 2021, the containership Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal, blocking all traffic going both ways.

As a young rabbit, I learned about Murphy’s law from the “Rambling Wrecks from Georgia Tech, who were all one heck of an engineer.” If you’re not familiar with Murphy, his law states, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” and the corollary law is “It’ll go wrong at the worst possible time and cause the most damage possible.” One would think these engineers were all chronic pessimists who saw the proverbial water glass half empty, but they would claim they’re just realists. Murphy’s Law simply reflects the natural fact we can’t control outcomes or people. Since the results of future actions can’t be avoided, you always should prepare for the worst and rejoice if the best happens instead.

I’ve always been fond of Murphy’s Law, but never more so during the holidays. Holiday festivities always include people, activities done only once a year, and often larger, unsupervised groups (often including alcohol), which means Mr. Murphy is often an uninvited guest. How he manages to sneak in, I have no idea, but he’s shown up in my rabbit den or kitchen more than once. Maybe he has an affinity for my rabbit clan, or perhaps he’s drawn to chaos and confusion. I’m not saying my rabbit family is a rowdy bunch, but we’ve always been loud and active. There’s not much difference between a whirlwind, a tornado, and my two brothers.

I don’t remember Murphy appearing at my Grand Rabbits’ celebrations, but they were of the generation who believed “little rabbits should be seen and not heard.” I imagine they showed Murphy the door if he dropped by. Likewise, when my mother began hosting the holiday meals, the Murphy drama of “anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time” also never happened. My mom took on a drill sergeant’s precision when she produced the roast beast feast.

Not my tree, not my cats, but same Murphy result

When I bought a little house, Murphy made himself welcome. I invited friends over to decorate the Christmas tree. We stepped back to toast our creation, but the tree crashed forward to the floor, as if it were taking a bow in response. Our toast interrupted, we set the tree upright, tied it to the window handle, and resumed our toast in peace. One day I’ll tell you about my experiences of raking the roof on that little house before the rainy season set in each fall.

Murphy wouldn’t leave me alone. I moved to Texas, bought another little house, and my dear mom and dad invited themselves and my brother’s family over for a holiday feast. She pushed all the potato peels into my starter home’s basic garbage disposal and turned it on. If “Anything can go wrong at the worst possible time and cause the worst damage possible,” my dear bunny mom discovered it.

“I don’t understand; my disposal at home will handle all this.”
“Yes, mother. You have a real, custom house, not a starter home. This is a baby disposal.”

Then we got the wastebasket, the pliers, and I put on my plumber’s hat. We pulled out the clog, drained the water, and put it all back together again. Mom was traumatized. Mom kept apologizing, but I reminded her, “It’s no big deal. It won’t happen again. And we have food to eat. We’ll laugh about this one day!”

Murphy still visits me on occasion. But I’ve learned to prepare for him to limit his damages. This thanksgiving I had a friend for dinner. They made a bathroom visit before they left. When I went there, I found the faucet still running and I wasn’t able to turn it off. Water was all over the floor and inside the original cabinet from 1965. I turned off the water under the sink, thinking I was glad I’d asked my plumber to give me new shutoffs when I put the new faucet in. The old ones had froze shut. I’m now brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink, but that’s all right. I’ll probably have to replace this whole thing, all for the demise of a $5 faucet washer. This is Murphy’s Law in a nutshell. Santa will have to visit Lowes or Home Depot for my Christmas gift this year. I hope I’ve been a good rabbit, as the saying goes. And my stocking is extra big.

Christmas isn’t the only holiday of December, although an estimated $942.6 billion in holiday retail sales in the United States might cause us rabbits to think otherwise. One study found that 60% of workers were more distracted and less motivated as the Christmas holidays approached, with some workers even saying this feeling started as early as November. Likewise, during the holiday time many employees will take off to spend time with family or just to enjoy the holiday. That cuts into productivity as well. We have our own Mr. Scrooge in our rabbit towns too. I have any number of rabbit buddies who need time off to hunt and be alone in the woods for a bit. I begrudge them not, as long as their spouses can take care of holidays uninterrupted.

The coming darkness of the Winter Solstice causes people all around the world to light fires and burn candles to overcome the gloom. We’ve done this for ages and in many places. In fact, humans may have observed the winter solstice as early as Neolithic period—the last part of the Stone Age—beginning about 10,200 BCE. The Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a winter solstice celebration dedicated to the Saturn, the god of agriculture, wealth, and time. While it began as a one-day celebration in early December, this pagan festival later expanded into a riotous weeklong party stretching from December 17 to 24.

Robert Macpherson: Roman Forum—Temple of Saturn, 1850s, J.Paul Getty Museum

The Temple of Saturn, the oldest temple recorded by the pontiffs, had been dedicated on the Saturnalia around 497 BCE on a site originally occupied by an altar to the god. Due to the link between Saturn and agriculture, the original source of Rome’s wealth, the temple was also the repository for the State Treasury, or the Aerarium Populi Romani, which was located beneath the stairs under the high podium. It also contained the bronze tablets on which Roman law was inscribed.

The woolen bonds, which fettered the feet of the ivory cult statue of Saturn within, were loosened on the festival day to symbolize the god’s liberation. On this festival day, after a sacrifice at the temple, the people held a public banquet attended by both slave and free persons. An image of the god was placed as if in attendance at this meal, or a lectisternium (reclining on a couch), a tradition which Livy says was introduced in 397 BCE. (Others date this to 399 BCE.) The practice was introduced as a specific emergency response to a natural crisis: extremes of temperature occurring in both summer and winter had given rise to a devastating plague that had proceeded to ravage the population. It was celebrated from December 17 to 23, ending on ending on the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or the birthday of the Unconquerable Sun.

Not only were public rites celebrated with all the splendour then available, but Livy goes on to describe the general tenor of the private celebration in the late 1st C BCE (around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ):

“They also celebrated the rites in their own homes. All through the city, it is said, doors stood wide open, all kinds of food were setout for universal consumption, all comers were welcomed, whether known or not, and men even exchanged kind and civil words with personal enemies; there was a truce to quarreling and legal action; even prisoners were released from their chains for those days, and they hesitated thereafter to imprison men whom the gods had befriended.”

Roman coin with a image of of Marcus Aurelius on obverse and on reverse, a lectisternium associated with an atonement meal, c 167/168 CE. Münzkabinett, Berlin

This ritual meal was commonly shared by the worshippers, in contrast to normal sacrifice, which distinguished human from divine portions. In other words, in the Lectisternium the gods were not only present in spirit, but in form, and they shared in the ritual meal.

The question we have to ask is how did Saturnalia move from a feast of appeasement to reduce harm to the people, to the debauchery which most history books write about today? The powers that be tried over the years to limit the length and celebratory excesses of the season, whether they were civic or religious powers. I suppose they had no counselor rabbits to advise them of Murphy’s Law: “Very little work will get done in the holiday season, and what does manage to get done will most likely need redoing in the New Year.”

Beaker with Inscription, “Rejoice Much,” 1st century AD, Eastern Mediterranean.
Glass, 3 1/16 × 2 7/8 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004.35

By the 1st CE, Pliny, the Roman historian, was holed up in his room during Saturnalia, while the rest of the family celebrated the feasts, hijinx, and tomfoolery. In the 4th CE, the Christian church decided Christ’s birthday should be celebrated in the winter near the solstice, instead of in the more likely time of spring. The first reference to December 25 as the Nativity of Jesus occurs in a section of the Chronography of AD 354 known as the Calendar of Philocalus, which, even by this late date, still identified December 17 as ludi Saturnalia. By this time, some of the traditions of Saturnalia had already transferred into the Christian era. These were the green decorations of holly, a plant sacred to Saturn, in people’s homes; the small gifts of affection for all comers; the feasts; and the welcoming of strangers with fruit treats and nuts. Upending social conventions for a while reminds us God has no favorites, unlike our stratified social structures of the past and present.

Monogramme of Christ (the Chi Rho) on a plaque of a sarcophagus, 4th-century AD, marble, Musei Vaticani, on display in a temporary exhibition at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy. / Photo by Jebulon

December 17 was recognized as the date of the Saturnalia as late as 448 CE, when the ecclesiastical calendar or laterculus (“list”) of Polemius Silvius noted it as feriae servorum (“festival of the slaves”), a festival now deprived of its pagan significance. By the eighth century CE, church authorities complained how even people in Rome were still celebrating the old pagan customs associated with the Saturnalia and other winter holidays. The Temple of Saturn was largely destroyed in the mid-fifteenth century, so all that remains today is six of its Ionic granite columns crowned with a frieze thought to date to approximately 30 BCE.

As we approach the solstice time and the season of the Lord’s birth, we give thanks along with the gospel writer of John 1:5—

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Along with all my bunny friends and family, I hope you all remember what my little daughter said about that “Luke guy, who had such a big part in the Christmas Eve service” the year she learned to read:

“By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.” — Luke 1:78-79

Holman Hunt: Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock , 1854, Kebel College, Oxford, England

Joy, peace, and Good Cheer,

CORNELIA

Consumers Expecting Issues in Survey on Holiday Supply Chain Issues | Transport Topics
https://www.ttnews.com/articles/consumers-expecting-issues-survey-holiday-supply-chain-issues

Murphy’s Laws—CMU School of Computer Science
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fgandon/miscellaneous/murphy/

How Murphy’s Law Works | HowStuffWorks
https://people.howstuffworks.com/murphys-law.htm

Statistics on Holiday Retail Sales 2022
https://www.statista.com/statistics/243439/holiday-retail-sales-in-the-united-states/

The business of Christmas | Hult International Business School
https://www.hult.edu/blog/the-business-of-christmas/

8 Winter Solstice Celebrations Around the World – HISTORY
https://www.history.com/news/8-winter-solstice-celebrations-around-the-world

December Solstice Traditions and Customs
https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/december-solstice-customs.html

Temple of Saturn – History and Facts | History Hit
https://www.historyhit.com/locations/temple-of-saturn/

(99+) ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’: the origins and development of the lectisternium. | Michael Beer – Academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/2076041/_Guess_who_s_coming_to_dinner_the_origins_and_development_of_the_lectisternium

Saturnalia: How Did The Romans Celebrate ‘Christmas’? | HistoryExtra
https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/how-did-the-romans-celebrate-christmas/

Saturnalia
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/saturnalia.html

Rabbit! Rabbit!

art, Attitudes, autumn leaves, autumnal equinox, brain plasticity, cognitive decline, Faith, Imagination, ministry, nature, Painting, perfection, poverty, pumpkins, rabbits, renewal, Rosh Hoshanah

Welcome to September

On September 5, we celebrate Labor Day, and our kids are already back in school. We’re once again slowing down in school zones in the morning and afternoon, and setting an extra plate at the kitchen table for our absent college freshman. We might even see the first fall colors when the Fall Equinox comes around at the end of the month.

September is when we set aside our summer white clothes and shoes to change our closet over for darker colors and longer lengths. My dear mother had a rule of never wearing white past Labor Day. This quaint fashion principle dates from before Memorial Day, which was instituted in 1868 after the Civil War. This rule helped to separate the old money families, who summered in the country and at the seashore, from those who stayed to struggle on in the grimy cities, which were polluted by coal fired engines. These urban families usually wore dark clothes year round, as the rich did when they returned to their city residence.

Air conditioning has changed this now, but wearing starched, white cotton still reminds people you either have money to send your clothes to the cleaners or hire laborers to do it for you. Or, you might just work extra hard to look like one of the first two. This bunny has reached the age of dripping dry all those cotton clothes. I actually do more ironing when I do a craft project, such as quilting, since those seams need to be pressed open to make a good square. As this bunny has aged, I’ve changed my mind about what I think is important enough to worry about.

September is also a time to reassess the three core myths which animate much of American life. These myths are we can give 100% to our work, 100% to our family, and 100% to our personal health. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to do this type of higher math without going bananas or feeling significant amounts of guilt that I’m not doing enough in one of those areas. Eventually I learned I was only Wonder Woman in my fantasies, but not in real life. I also realized other people who managed better than I hired help for the housework to free themselves up for family time.

Somewhere along the line we’ve bought into the myth of the “ideal worker,” who “has no competing obligations that might get in the way of total devotion to the workplace.” The second myth is the “perfect parent,” who “always puts family first.” The last myth is the “ultimate body,” which is cultivated through diligent dieting and exercise, and doesn’t deteriorate with age.

The authors of Dreams of the Overworked, note in the digital age, when people can post curated images of their best lives, “Achieving even one of these myths would be impossible, but achieving all three is ludicrous.” If your daily stress has increased and you feel like everything you do isn’t enough, I suggest deep breathing with your eyes closed (unless you’re driving a vehicle!). Once you get some extra oxygen to your brain, you’re in a position to calmly reconsider your situation. Not all situations are hair on fire, unless you’re a two year old with separation anxiety. Most of us beyond this age have experience and memories which can guide our future behaviors. An ancient proverb is “Experience is the mother of wisdom,” or as my folks used to say, “The school of hard knocks is the most expensive degree you’ll ever pay for.” Live and learn. With age comes wisdom.

Now that you’re calmer, you can decide, “Do I have options? Do I have a support system with people who can help me discern my way? Can I lay down my false self image of competence so I can ask for help? Can I triage my priorities to say NO to the less important ones, even if it means not pleasing everyone in my social circle?”

Google it, Ask friends for recommendations, and Breathe!

Speaking of options, women are primarily responsible for housework and childcare, not only in America, but also across the pond. About 91% of women with children spend at least an hour per day on housework, compared with 30 % of men with children. The latest available data shows that employed women spend about 2.3 hours daily on housework; for employed men, this figure is 1.6 hours. Gender gaps in housework participation are the largest among couples with children, at 62 p.p., demonstrating an enduring imbalance in unpaid care responsibilities within families. This leads to women taking lower and slower career paths.

September 22 is the Fall Equinox. We’re already seeing signs of seasonal leaf color changes, due to heat stress and drought. Some call this “False Fall,” but I call it a sign of hope. Trees will drop their leaves in order to survive in extreme conditions. Although some claim plants are sentient, they don’t have a brain or consciousness that we can recognize. They do interact and react to their environments. Their first priority is survival. Photosynthesis and the subsequent leaf abscission after changing color is part of this process. I always look for the change of light which precedes this event. One morning last week, I noted the color of the morning light had turned cooler, and wasn’t the warm yellow of summer. I also had a spark of energy I hadn’t had before. I look forward to more daylight.

This bunny is very fond of September, since I’ve always been eager to start fresh and new. I always got new pencils and a new manilla paper writing pad when I started elementary school. Later on, as I progressed up in grades, ink pens with cartridges were a special treat. Even to this day, I keep my journals with hand written ink in good paper books. I love the feel of these materials in my hands. I probably would have stayed in school my whole life if possible. The day our brains quit learning something new is the day our minds begin to die.

That leads me to remind my bunny friends that Alzheimer’s disease is the 7^th leading cause of death in the USA and it’s the most common cause of dementia in persons over 65. While most of you may not be baby boomers, you young bunnies have grandparents or parents of that age. Today, about 6.5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, but that number is expected to almost double to 12.7 million by 2050. Perhaps beginning September with World Alzheimer’s Day is a good reminder for all of us to be proactive about our health choices, so we can live independently as long as possible into our senior years.

I also like Positive Thinking Day, since reframing negative thoughts into positive ones changes our attitude, our behaviors, and then we get better outcomes as a result. If you don’t feel like being Batman on the 17^th, you can ARRRGUH yourself about, MATEY, as you Talk Like a Pirate on the 19^th. Bonus points if you wear an eye patch, earring, and tricorne hat or bandana on your head.

The Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset on the 25^th. It’s one of the four “new year” celebrations in their religious calendar. This one recalls God’s creation of humanity, as well as the legal new year. On this one night in September, when the faithful eat apples dipped in honey or other sweet sauces, they remember how God originally created humans in a sinless state and wish each other a good year to come.

Did I forget International Bacon Day? How can any rabbit forget bacon? Someone will cut my carrot rations for the future, I fear. But if I remember to keep the coffee pot full, I’ll probably get out of the rabbit hoosegow before National Coffee Day on the 29^th.

Some interesting holidays we can celebrate this month are: Better Breakfast Month (I suggest bacon, eggs, and pancakes on the weekend and old fashioned oatmeal during the week). There’s also Hispanic Heritage Month and National Sewing Month. Finally, every year on September 30th is National Love People Day. The purpose of the day is to show love to everyone—no exceptions. National Love People Day offers us the opportunity to show unconditional love, which many have never experienced. When we genuinely love our neighbors and express it with kind words and thoughtful deeds, we make our world a better place. This the true meaning of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Maybe one meaning of loving your neighbor is offering a meal to them. Food insecurity is increasing once again, this time due to increased rents and costs of transportation. Consider a weekly meal service from your church building or organization’s meeting place. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but calories and nutrition would help hungry people have the strength to move on from their current situations. Joining with other groups to cover all the days of the week would be a bonus to your community, not only for the hungry, but also for the smaller groups who could team up to share in the blessing of loving their neighbors.

Until the spice is on the pumpkin, I wish all my bunny friends

Joy, peace, and Bacon,

Cornelia

America’s Ideal of Working Parents Has Become Unattainable – The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/06/working-parents-impossible/613429/

Beckman and Mazmanian: Dreams of the Overworked: Living, Working, and Parenting in the Digital Age

Gender differences on household chores entrenched from childhood | European Institute for Gender Equality https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-equality-index-2021-report/gender-differences-household-chores

Debunking a myth: plant consciousness | SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/september-monthly-observances/

September Monthly Observances – National Day Calendar

International Chocolate Day

INTERNATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY – September 13, 2022 – National Today

Home – National Love People Day – National Love People Day

Alzheimer’s Facts and Figures Report | Alzheimer’s Association
https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/facts-figures

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to July

adult learning, art, Children, Declaration of Independence, Family, Foundational Documents, Habits, holidays, Independence Day, inspiration, instagram, Painting, purpose, rabbits, risk, sleep, summer vacation, Virginia Bill of Rights, vision

Are we the United States of America or the Un-Tied States of America? One of the apocryphal sayings misattributed to the great Benjamin Franklin is “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Many are the words of wisdom from those who can’t speak up for themselves anymore, but especially numerous are the aphorisms of those we hold in high esteem, the founders of our nation.

As a young rabbit, my summers were often spent in the game of “School,” as the days lengthened beyond the end of actual school. My mother rabbit, a school teacher in real life, would find me underneath the shade tree in our backyard where I’d be instructing my younger neighbor rabbits sitting in neat rows. Since old school teachers never lose their calling to teach, the upcoming anniversary of the birth of our nation is an opportunity for all of us to remember our national struggle for independence and liberty was a cause both difficult and hard won.

I’ll take one of each flavor, thank you!

As we rabbits pull out our flags, bunting, firecrackers, and ice cream churns, we might want to take a moment to remember the danger and risk our ancestors took to become an independent nation, rather than colonies subservient to the English crown. For many great reasons we can thank our ancestors for their refusal to endure the insults of taxation without representation and the indignities of having all their judicial decisions subject to revision by a foreign party. Indeed, the colonists lived as second class citizens, a fact which grated upon their very souls. Many were their entreaties to the King of England for redress of these wrongs, but to no avail.

Redress is the righting of a wrong. Some wrongs are more wrong than others, to be sure. As a young rabbit in the first year of junior high school, I discovered all my classmates had later bedtimes than I did. In fact, I was still turning in at 7 pm along with my baby brother, who was a mere 8 years old. I made an extensive survey of my different class groups and discovered the average bedtime was 8 pm. I knew my old fashioned rabbit parents would never let me stay up until 10 pm at my tender age.

My daddy was always saying, “Young rabbits need their sleep to grow up big, strong, healthy, smart, and good looking.” I never had a good argument against these reasons, so I’d go to bed, even if I might sneak a flashlight and read a book under the covers. I did get permission to stay up to the late hour of 8 pm, however. Perhaps rebellion is part of the American DNA.

Birthing the American Union wasn’t easy. The collection of individual colonies operated separately and had their own interests. Joining them together into one whole wasn’t an easy task, for each would have to put the common good ahead of their own individual needs and desires. Benjamin Franklin proposed The Albany Plan In July 21, 1754, for a union of the American provinces, which he proposed to a conference of provincial delegates at Albany, New York, to better battle the French and their Indian allies. We remember this era as the French and Indian Wars.

Benjamin Franklin. Plan of Proposed Union (Albany Plan), 1754. Manuscript. Hazard Papers in the Peter Force Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (2.00.02)

The Albany Plan called for proportional representation in a national legislature and a president general appointed by the King of Great Britain. It served as a model for Franklin’s revolutionary Plan of Confederation in 1775. His original idea germinated in people’s minds, along with other writings which Franklin “lay upon the table.” Not everyone was ready to approve these proposals, but his proposed Draft Articles of Confederation helped the committee when they finally began to focus their action in July, 1775 to write what became our constitution.

In November, 1755, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania pressed for a Militia Act in order to recruit persons for defense of the area from Indian and French attacks. The military units contemplated were purely voluntary and the officers, though commissioned by the governor, were to be elected from below, not appointed from above. The most important difference was that in 1747 the Association was a completely extra-legal body created by the volunteers themselves, while in 1755 the military units were, for the first time in Pennsylvania history, to be established by formal legislative act. And during the eleven months before news of its disallowance by the King reached the colony, the act did serve, in spite of its limitations, as a basis for raising reserve forces for provincial defense.

The Virginia delegates to the Philadelphia convention of 1774 went with this charge in hand:

“It cannot admit of a Doubt but that British Subjects in America are entitled to the same Rights and Privileges as their Fellow Subjects possess in Britain; and therefore, that the Power assumed by the British Parliament to bind America by their Statutes, in all Cases whatsoever, is unconstitutional, and the Source of these unhappy Differences.”

The crown had placed an embargo on the colonists and had forbidden them to import any manufactured goods, books, and while they might trade with other parts of the realm, those countries didn’t have to reciprocate. Economic sanctions were used for political purposes even in the 18th century.

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a Resolution of Independence on June 7, 1776.

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, was sold by the thousands. By the middle of May 1776, eight colonies had decided that they would support independence. When the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia Hall on June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia read his resolution beginning: “Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

After 21 years of planning, priming, and planting of the seeds for the fragile fruit of a New Democratic nation, it would finally come to life in the July 1776 Declaration of Independence and the 1789 Constitution of the United States of America. Yet not everyone was on board, not everyone wanted to leave the established relationship, even if it wasn’t the best situation.

Thomas Jefferson: Rough Draft of Declaration of Independence

Jefferson modeled the Declaration of Independence on the Virginia Bill of Rights, which became the basis for the Bill of Rights of the new Constitution of the United States of America. Notice the sections on 3: Governance by the Majority, 5: Separation of Governmental Powers, with Executive and Legislative members returned to private service, 12: Freedom of the Press, and 13: Armed State Militias.

“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”

Virginia Declaration of Rights, one of several pages

Section 13 of the Virginia Bill of Rights is one of the founding documents of our nation. Many today talk about “what the founders wanted.” One way we can know in part is to look at the historic records, although they are few and far between. We can find these in the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and at the Smithsonian Museum, among others. We don’t have to be mind readers or seek some medium to channel the spirits of their ancestral vision. We’re fortunate they and their descendants recognized their importance to history. Today we throw away records at a fast pace, not knowing what will be important for the future.

While today nearly every young rabbit instagrams their lunch or their night out with a comment, which lasts in perpetuity on the internet, sometimes to a more mature rabbit’s shame and embarrassment, people nearly 250 years ago had to sit down, collect their thoughts, sharpen a quill pen, dip it frequently into the ink well, and write on precious sheets of paper.

Scholars think the Declaration of Independence was not signed by any of the delegates of the Continental Congress on July 4. The huge canvas painting by John Trumbull hanging in the grand Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol depicting the signing of the Declaration is a work of imagination. In his biography of John Adams, historian David McCullough wrote: “No such scene, with all the delegates present, ever occurred at Philadelphia.” We do have Jefferson’s draft copy as well as several printed copies that are “originals,” plus the clean, handwritten copy we treasure as a founding document.

John Trumbull, American, 1756–1843
The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
1786–1820, Oil on canvas,
Yale University Art Gallery,
New Haven, Connecticut

If we had been members of the Second Continental Congress in 1776, we would have been rebels and considered traitors by the King. He would have posted a reward for the capture of each of us, since we were the most prominent rebel leaders. Soon enough the largest British armada ever assembled would anchor just outside New York harbor. By affixing our names to the document,we pledged our life,our fortune, and our sacred honor to the cause of freedom. Perhaps this would causes us today to pause. Then again, we might dip the quill into the ink well and take our first breath as a free American. We’d sign our name with pride. We would be part of history now.

As we prepare our menus for our backyard barbecues and make our plans for block parties, let’s remember in most urban areas firecrackers and explosive devices are banned, except for professional light and sound experiences. Be safe in large crowds, especially at night and in entertainment districts. Be safe, be smart, keep hot food hot and cold food cold.

Jello Pudding Icebox Cake with Graham Cracker Layers and Fresh Fruit Flag Design

Joy, peace, and history,

Cornelia

Choose your preferred font and “sign the Declaration of Independence”
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/join-the-signers

Jefferson’s Rough Draft of Declaration of Independence. [Digital ID# us0002_2]//www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/DeclarationofIndependence/RevolutionoftheMind/Assets/us0002_2_725.Jpeg

Is July 2 America’s true Independence Day? John Adams thought so. – The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/07/01/is-july-2-the-true-independence-day-john-adams-thought-so/

Silk Declaration of Independence Scarf, Full size, supports the US National Archive
https://www.nationalarchivesstore.org/products/declaration-of-independence-silk-scarf

Militia Act, [25 November 1755]
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0116

Rabbit! Rabbit!

adult learning, at risk kids, brain plasticity, Children, city, Dreamscape, Faith, Family, flowers, Healing, holidays, Icons, Love, mandala, Mandylion, Ministry, ministry, nature, Prayer, purpose, rabbits, Reflection, renewal, risk, school shootings, shame, Spirituality, Stonehenge, summer solstice, texas, Uncategorized

Welcome to June! I’ve found my sunshades and my flip flops, so this rabbit is ready for a summer vacation. Old school teachers never die, they just take the summer off. And teachers, as well as students, will need a summer off, along with some intensive counseling, to get them ready to return in a healthy frame of mind next fall.

In my early years in ministry, I served in a certain county where many people were caught up in despair. I often complained to my district superintendent of my desire to pour mood elevators into the public water supply.

“You do know drugging the water supply isn’t exactly an acceptable activity for a Methodist minister?”

“Oh, yeah, but it sure would make my job easier.”

Remember, June 3 is Love Conquerors All Day. I need to remind myself of this on occasion when I want to take the easy road. As Jesus reminds us in Matthew 7:13—

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide
and the road is easy that leads to destruction,
and there are many who take it.”

Taking the easy way out isn’t always the best choice, but it’s the one we rabbits most often choose. We rabbits don’t like to rock the boat, and we like to make all the other rabbits happy if at all possible. The only problem is if we please A, B gets upset. If we please B, A gets upset. We don’t even try to please C, since C is so cranky, even the good Lord Jesus couldn’t fry an egg to please them. We set our hearts and minds on pleasing God, as best we can, and hope to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.”

Chocolate ice cream brings me joy any day of the year, but June 7 is a day dedicated to this frozen delight. Don’t worry about frying eggs, but keep it frozen. I like mine plain, but fresh strawberries or peaches are a nice addition, plus some chopped nuts. Always go for complex, unless you just can’t wait. Then grab a spoon and eat it straight from the pint. (Mark it with your name, since you ate from it.)

Often we cut the Gordian Knot and go for the shortcut to our complex problems. Sometimes this is a good solution, for the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. My daughter used to call my vacation navigation shortcuts “the long cuts,” since I’m directionally challenged. Most of the time, that straight line went through swamp land and alligators. I can hear her voice now, “NOOOOO!!!” I’m known for taking the scenic route, so I often see America’s less known sights, which are off the beaten path.

In the gospel of Luke (14:34), Jesus quotes a proverbial saying:

“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”

Another translation of the latter portion of this verse is “how can it be used for seasoning?”

When I think of loss, I think of a life snuffed out. Some people are burned out, so we can say they’ve lost their seasoning ability. There’s no vim or vigor in them. Other lives are cut short and aren’t able to fulfill their purpose to season the great soup of our community. Our past month was marked by 47 mass shooting incidents in May alone. A mass shooting incident is defined as one in which at least four people are injured or killed, not including the shooter. Suicides aren’t included.

Suicides are also a public health problem. They are the “deaths of despair” that leave ripples of grief and hopelessness in the survivors. They’re the ultimate shortcut solution to a problem, the placing of a period where life has placed a comma or a semicolon. My daughter once attempted suicide by downing half a bottle of aspirin. I noticed the open bottle and pills scattered across the floor. She said the “dog ate it.”

“That’s too bad, I’m going to miss that dog. She won’t be long for this world. We’ll need to make burial plans for her.”

“Well, actually, I’m the one who ate the aspirin.”

“Then we’re going to the hospital. You aren’t going to like getting your stomach pumped, but it’s better than being dead. You want to have a chance to grow up and have a good life. A dog we can replace. You—not so much.”

It was a rough time in her life, and mine too. But God was with us. And we had support from counselors, friends, family, and our church family. My work family and my clients supported me too. I must be the most extroverted rabbit in the patch, because I asked everyone for help. It turned out my problem was shared by everyone else. I discovered I wasn’t alone, but was the most ordinary of rabbits around.

This is a humbling experience, especially when you’re a first child and the only girl. I admit to being spoiled, but don’t let my brother rabbits hear me say this. I’ll deny it to my last breath: I’m like every other rabbit I know. I want to think I’m someone special, even when I’m just as fluffy as every other bunny out there on Gods green earth.

Unfortunately, half the suicides today are committed with a gun, not aspirins. When looking at overall gun deaths, roughly two-thirds are attributed to suicides—a proportion that is consistent across most states. Gun suicides are on the rise and data also indicates men, white Americans, older people, and individuals living in rural areas present higher rates of gun suicides. Another group presenting a unique risk for suicide is current and former members of the armed forces, especially those with PTSD.

Compared with the general population, current and former military members have significantly higher rates of gun ownership. According to a 2015 study, nearly 50% of U.S. veterans own a gun. In contrast, studies suggest that only about 22% of the general U.S. population owns firearms. Similarly, the age groups of 50 to 64 years old and 65 and older have the highest rates of gun ownership, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center study. This can further explain the high rates of suicide among older veterans.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), in 2019, close to 4,332 veterans died by gun suicide in the United States, representing close to 18 percent of the total number of gun suicides reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during that year. Perhaps more alarming is the fact this figure shows a veteran is killed by gun suicide every two hours. In 2019, active duty military members committed suicide by gun 64% of the 498 total (318), almost one gun suicide per day.

Why isn’t anyone speaking about this? For all the lip service our politicians give to the flag and to the armed service members, they seem to forget them once they’re no longer useful to fight their wars or march in their parades. Perhaps because Congress won’t devote any money to study the effects of gun violence on the citizens of our Beautiful America, so we have to fund private studies here and there to piece together a patchwork of facts of this scourge on the peace of our people.

My young neighbor, only 8 years old, was in a panic as he knocked on my door the other day. His parents hadn’t come straight up the elevator, as they’d said they would. He was crying to beat the band and was sure something bad had happened to them. I invited him inside and left the door open so we could see them come past. He was so worked up, he couldn’t sit down. I suggested a call to his daddy, but they came walking past just at that moment.

We don’t realize what terror these school shootings put our children through. There’s no safe place for them any more, no matter how “hardened” we make the buildings. Some person always breaks the shell at the most inopportune moment.

Some rabbits will have empty seats at their family reunion tables because someone decided to act impulsively. Father’s Day (June 19) won’t be a celebration without the son or daughter to give Dad the tie, the golf balls, or breakfast in bed.

I think back to my own childhood. We worried in the 1950’s more about the urban legends of Halloween candy poisoning, when we were more likely to get killed crossing Highway 1, a four lane highway running through our town. My mother rabbit would wait for me to ride the trolley home from school. She would wait until the near lane of traffic cleared before she walked out to the center median and time this so the far lane’s cars would finish passing so she could walk across the newly empty lanes to meet me on the other side. We held hands and crossed in the same manner on the way back to our home.

This was our routine from the start of school until sometime in the autumn. Mother was delayed one day, so I sat down to wait for her and opened my book to read. I was wearing a brown jacket against the early cool spell, and my dirty blonde hair blended in with the pile of dry leaves on the ground. Intent on my book, I failed to see her come outside. She overlooked me and went inside thinking I’d missed my ride.

A bit later, I decided if she wasn’t coming for me, I’d come to her. Gathering up my possessions, I stood on the curbside. I watched the comings and goings of the quickly moving traffic. Once I saw the break in the pattern, I walked out into the clearing, waited at the median, and crossed behind the trailing traffic of the second lane. When I walked inside, my mother had a conniption fit. After this, I began riding my bicycle to school, and my brother got to come with me.

Not everyone is mature enough to cross a four lane busy highway by themselves when they’re in the fourth grade, which is the same age as the children who lost their lives at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. . Some people still need to be supervised at work even in their 20’s. The brain keeps maturing past age 21, as the frontal lobes, which are home to key components of the neural circuitry underlying “executive functions” (such as planning, working memory, and impulse control) are among the last areas of the brain to mature; they may not be fully developed until halfway through the third decade of life. Although neuroscience has been called upon to determine adulthood, there is little empirical evidence to support age 18, the current legal age of majority, as an accurate marker of adult capacities.

Since May 24, the date of this tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, the gunviolencearchive.org has recorded 16 mass shootings in six days, with 79 killed or wounded. Some of these are high school graduation parties where uninvited guests arrived and gunfire broke out, others are the result of young people wandering about in the late hours and getting into trouble with guns. During my time of ministry, youth, alcohol, and firearms were usually a recipe for trouble. Maybe parental rabbits’ brains are still developing too, if they aren’t able to put their rabbit foot down and tell the junior rabbits to leave their weapons at home. Visiting Jack Rabbit in jail for accidental death or intentional use of a firearm will throw a curve into your best laid plans for your progeny.

Instead, cities may have to reinstitute curfews after dark to curtail the opportunities for gun violence. Or they could raise the age to buy a weapon and require a longer waiting time and a more thorough background check. I wouldn’t be opposed to a training class and a test to see if the owner knows how to use the weapon safely. After all, we do this for the 2 ton weapon of mass destruction known as the family automobile. So what if the founding fathers never had autos; they also never had automatic pistols or large magazine weapons, modeled on the ones used in combat.

Did I mention June is National Safety Month? Its emphasis is workplace safety, but as a former teacher, this old rabbit reminds you, between 2009 and 2020, teachers’ workplaces are in schools, which is where 30% of mass shootings occurred in public places (schools, malls, or bars), while 61% of mass shootings occurred entirely in the home and another 9% occurred partially in a home and partially in a public location. The common factor in these is the gun and the presence of domestic violence. In at least 53 percent of mass shootings between 2009 and 2020, the perpetrator shot a current or former intimate partner or family member during the rampage.

Richard Small seen posing with his rifle before turning it over to police.
(Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)

I know y’all usually expect a bright and cheery note from me at the beginning of the month, but my heart is broken. Thoughts and prayers are nice, but they don’t stop the carnage. We need to make some changes. At least one man has turned in his assault weapon to his local police station, so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. He couldn’t bear the thought of it being used to perpetrate a similar crime if he were to sell it. If we parents don’t say no to our children, if we keep voting for politicians who are doing nothing, then we get to keep the distinction of having the highest rate of violent gun deaths for any of the developed countries.

That’s not the American Exceptionalism I believe in. We can do better. These are crimes against the common good and against the innocent. The shooter shares the primary blame, but everyone who does nothing to change our society for the better also shares the blame and shame for the next group of victims. At the rate we’re going, we’re having about one mass shooting per day. Eventually this scourge will come to YourTown, USA, and your small town police force will be just as flabbergasted as poor Uvalde’s. How could this happen in our little corner of the world?

I cry along with Jeremiah ( 8:21-22):

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?

Time Magazine Cover from 2019 with all the Mass Shooting Locations Named

Sometimes we go along with the attributes of cultural Christianity, rather than practicing the Christianity of Jesus Christ. Romans 12:2 reminds us

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern
what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Joy, peace, and balm for hurting souls,

Rev. Cornelia

Deadly Dreams: What Motivates School Shootings? – Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deadly-dreams/

You can view a report of any 2022 mass shooting incident by visiting the list on the Gun Violence Archive’s website:
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

Poisoned Halloween Candy | Snopes.com
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deadly-dreams/

Mass Shootings in America | Everytown Research & Policy | Everytown Research & Policy
https://everytownresearch.org/maps/mass-shootings-in-america/

Adolescent Maturity and the Brain: The Promise and Pitfalls of Neuroscience Research in Adolescent Health Policy – PMC
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/

Guns and Mass Shootings: Data Show Why US Is Outlier on Deaths From Firearms
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-us-gun-violence-world-comparison/

Texas romance with guns tested by Uvalde school shooting – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/30/uvalde-shooting-guns/

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to May 2022

art, coronavirus, Faith, flowers, generosity, greek myths, Holy Spirit, inspiration, Love, nature, Painting, poverty, purpose, rabbits, Spirituality, Turkey, Ukraine, vision

This rabbit isn’t ready for May. Even as I say “Rabbit, Rabbit,” on this prime morning, I realize time already is too quickly flying past. I knew this day would eventually come, but surely I thought, not yet. When my rabbit parents were long of tooth—I think they were over forty—they said they had a longer “to do list” than their day was long. I think this was the time they were sending me the golden “round tuit” so I would get my own to do list done. Parental units in every generation have always projected their problems onto their offspring, or perhaps their offspring inherit or imitate the adults’ tendencies.

May is a good time for spring cleaning. Every rabbit hutch or den can use a bit of freshening up after a long winter and a cold spring. May 17th is Pack Rat Day, an opportunity to touch those items once and for all as you decide whether they belong in a Distribute, Donate, or Dump Box. If you just touch and can’t decide, you may be one of the 15 million hoarders in the United States. The days are getting warmer with more daylight and global warming adding to the elevated temperatures. We can’t do anything about the length of days, as these are determined by our planet’s oribit and inclination toward the sun. As we move toward summer, the Northern Hemisphere tilts toward the sun and gets warmer. In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite happens and their Christmas is warmer than their springtime.

May marks the end of Ramadan, the month long Islamic fast recognizing the gift of the Quran to the prophet Mohammed. In most communities in the United States, Eid begins at sundown on Monday, May 2, and lasts one to three days, depending on cultural tradition. Eid al-Fitr, which means “festival of breaking the fast,” comes after a month of abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset in observance of Ramadan. This is a time of renewal, wearing a new outfit, giving charity to the poor, and resuming the everyday rhythms of life.

Some of us finally get our gardens planted, in honor of the Ancient Greek and Roman goddesses of May. The word May entered the English language in the 1050’s, developing from the Old English Maius, which was borrowed directly from the Latin Maius, short for Maius mēnsis, “Maia’s month.” The Greek goddess Maia was one of the Pleiades, who were the companions of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. This Maia was the mother of Hermes, the messenger of the Gods. But the Romans had yet another goddess named Maia, who just happened to share her name with the Greek goddess. When later generations conflated the Greek Maia with the Roman Maia, a goddess of fertility and spring, we now celebrate May for growth and increase in the natural world.

Victory Gardens were in vogue during wartime due to shortages at home caused by food supplies diverted to soldiers fighting on the front. Original “supply chain problems.”

If we want to “go green,” in our gardens, we can practice composting our lawn clippings along with any brand of manure. This will enrich our earth with earthworms and organic materials. We can also practice “crop rotation.” This means we plant our tomatoes ina different plot every year so we don’t deplete the soil of certain nutrients or invite nematodes to eat the roots. As a spiritual practice, gardening calms the mind, for it connects us to the earth and the source of our food. Our forebears supplemented their menus in the hard times in days of old with fresh food from home gardens. Community gardens serve the public in urban areas.

An April Bunny’s Bad Hair, Don’t Care Day

Spring reminds us the seasons of the year are balanced, for we have a cold winter and a hot summer, just as we have a middling spring and autumn. I say “middling,” but I might have said “muddling,” for these two seasons in my corner of Rabbitville are marked by rain and mud. Torrents of rain, drenches of rain, and sometimes mere drizzles of rain. Some of us rabbits may have bad hair days, but I hear all this moisture is good for the face and the skin.

In our world, the great powers also attempt to maintain balance and influence. Two world wars will push nations into this choice, but nations rise and fall. Once Great Britain was the world’s great super power, but after these great wars, it was greatly diminished, while the United States, which was the source of Britain’s war materials, prospered. Germany, was cut off from international trade due to its war mongering, became dependent on itself. American industries prospered, so that by the end of the first world war, America became the creditor nation to these former belligerents.

America Feeds the World: after the World Wars, hunger was rife in Europe and Russia. American farmers sent our surplus to feed the continent’s populations.

Moreover, we began to feed the world. This rabbit would like to think our government is more generous than Mr. McGregregor, who is always chasing us hungry bunnies out of his precious garden, but poverty and hunger lead to unrest among the world’s people, and that destabilizes governments. Stable governments, which don’t oppress their people, are more welcome on the world stage than dictatorships that exist to serve only a small group of privileged individuals.

As the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power during the Cold War that followed World War II, President Harry S. Truman outlined what became known as the Truman Doctrine in a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947. He emphasized the broader consequences of a failure to protect the democracies in Greece and Turkey by saying:

“The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.”

Seventy-five years later, some of us rabbits have abandoned our national vision of democratic ideals, and have turned our back on our historic uniqueness among the nations of the world. While we may have aspired to grand ideals, but haven’t yet achieved them, this shouldn’t stop us from helping others continue their own difficult journey toward perfection. Once again, we have a bellicose dictatorship attempting to overthrow the will of Ukraine, a democratic nation, with the potential to continue such destabilizing activities in neighboring countries. What’s worse, Ukrainian agricultural products feed the world’s poorest countries, so without their harvests being replaced by American grain, people might go hungry. Hungry people are at risk for strong men with bad intentions.

Journeys aren’t ever easy. Any rabbit who tells you the road is easy, wide, and well marked on the way to their destination, has never heard the call of God saying, “Go to a land I will show you.” Those who think their path is sure, certain, and easy might want to remember this word from Matthew 7:13—

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.”

This is why we admire heroes, for their journeys aren’t ever easy, but usually require some difficult and demanding task, which transforms them into a new person. They become more than they ever were before. Yet, perhaps, they were always a hero, and they only needed the auspicious moment to bring forth their true character.

I remember the young man I met at a NASCAR event at Texas Motor Speedway. I asked him what he did under the stands while the race was going on.

He shrugged, “I just stand here and make sure nobody takes the other worker’s things.”

“Oh, like you’re the guardian of stuff!”
“I never thought of it like that.”

“Strike a hero pose. I’m going to take your picture .”

Everyone has a hero within, but not everyone has someone who affirms that hero. We all need to discover the hero within us, just as Jesus heard at his own baptism (Luke 3:22)—

“and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

My dear rabbit mother gifted this to me years ago

We rabbits can’t fail to recognize the heroes who gave us life and brought us into this world. I speak of our mothers, of course. My own dear mother was ready to move mountains and call in every personal favor to come be by my side when I was in an Italian hospital while I was on a summer student art program. My dear daddy had to calm her jets and remind her, “Honey, it’s just a bit of food poisoning. It’s not like major surgery.” Our mothers will do anything to protect their offspring, and that makes them heroes in my eyes. I was released in three days, so it would have been a futile trip for my sweet mother. Make sure you recognize your hero mom on May 8, for without her, you wouldn’t be here.

Speaking of hospitals, May 12th is the birthday of Florence Nightingale, whose service as a volunteer nurse during the 1854 British war against Russia in Crimera. Because of her service, dedication to her call, and the innovations she brought to her vocation, we now celebrate the women and men who follow her in the nursing profession. Back in Victorian times, nursing wasn’t a respectable job, and women of the upper classes were expected to remain at home to care for the family’s affairs. Those who hear God’s call don’t worry about cultural expectations, but follow the solitary path of the heroes who went before them. Remember the nurses of today who’ve had to put themselves into harm’s way to care for people with a disease that now can be prevented from the worst complications and death in most people with immunizations and ordinary remedies like masks, hand washing, and avoiding crowds.

All us rabbits can celebrate Sally Ride Day on May 26, which was the birthday of the first American woman in space. While our national space program seems to have lost its energy and will as we’ve outsourced its efforts to the private sector, we have to ask if giving millionaires the ride of their lifetimes benefits a democratic society more than when we funded the space program by a community of citizens who sent the most highly trained and vetted astronauts into space. But then, I’m only one rabbit and I can remember the thrill, excitement, and joy when I saw our first astronauts exiting from their bobbing capsules. I saw these events on a small screen, black and white television in my school room. Afterwards, all we could talk about in our classrooms was the heroic journey of these brave individuals and the team that helped them circumnavigate our planet at such heights.

Finally, all rabbits of every stripe can celebrate Memorial Day Weekend. For some of us, this holiday has been reduced to a three day picnic at the lake or the racetrack. Others will decorate the graves of fallen soldiers from one of our many wars, participate in a patriotic parade, or watch a plethora of auto racing events around the world. Memorial Day weekend is the busiest weekend in motorsports, with Formula 1 racing in Monoco, NASCAR at Charlotte, the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, and Lucus Oil Pro Motocross Championship from California. This rabbit will be in heaven. You could spend your tax refund on a new Television, many of which will go on sale over the weekend, or you could open a savings account for emergencies. A wise rabbit always has a little something extra stashed away for lean times. One never knows when Mr. McGregor will lock down his garden, since he doesn’t practice the ethics of Isaiah 58:10—

“if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.”

Self Portrait of the Artist as Wonder Woman

My old mother rabbit always reminded me if I was feeling down, all I needed to do was help someone less fortunate than me. It would get me out of my funk by focusing on helping another, as well as reminding me my problems were shared by others. Her message was a key to unlock the hero within me, without which I wouldn’t have done half the good I visited upon this world. My hope for each of you rabbits is to find the hero within you. If you allow God to accomplish deeds of courage through you, whether they be great or small, you’ll be transformed.

Joy, Peace, and May Flowers,

Cornelia

Truman Doctrine | Definition & Facts | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War

May 17 Is National Pack Rat Day! Here’s How to Celebrate.
https://ourcommunitynow.com/lifestyle/may-17-is-national-pack-rat-day-heres-how-to-celebrate

The Real Story of How America Became an Economic Superpower – The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/12/the-real-story-of-how-america-became-an-economic-superpower/384034/

Origin Of The Month of May’s Name | Dictionary.com
https://www.dictionary.com/e/may/

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to April 2022

adult learning, art, Carl Jung, Creativity, Easter, Faith, holidays, hope, Ministry, mystery, nature, Painting, rabbits, renewal, shadows, trees

What a difference a month makes! Only a few weeks ago, I was speaking with a rabbit pal, who was ground down by her constant caregiving in this pandemic world. She cares for elderly rabbits in a nursing home, a vulnerable population, plus she’s grieved the passing of several of her own family members lost to COVID.

“I’m not getting another shot,” she said. “I’m so tired of COVID, I could scream.”
“I know,” I replied, “but this isn’t over. As long as we have hosts—those who either can’t or won’t get vaccinated—COVID is going to mutate and stick around.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that! We’ve been through alpha, beta, and gamma. We’re on omicron now. What’s next?”

I laughed. “It doesn’t matter. It could be gigatron, megaton, or atragon—they’re all monsters and we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ll do what ever it takes to beat those monsters, just like in the Japanese movies.”

Her mood lifted somewhat, for in these hard times a friend has to be a support. I was only returning the favor, for she’s been my rock when I’ve been down.

Speaking of monsters, I love Japanese films. I once had a boyfriend in college who had a fondness for Japanese films.

“Oh, me too!” I exulted.
“What’s your favorite ?” he asked.
“I really like Mothra and Godzilla,” I replied to his frozen face.

He favored more arcane fare, such as The Burmese Harp, Rashomon, and others with samurai military themes. We did share a common love of pasta, but his military service took him elsewhere, and my artistic sensibilities took me to a different place also.

We rabbits like to escape from reality when life gets too real at times, as it has this past month. The Bible speaks of “the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle,” in 2 Samuel 11:1. When the sap rises and the light gets brighter, some circadian rhythm must kick in that sets off a power struggle amongst the powers that be. When I taught school back in the day, all my rabbit students were wild as hares from April Fool’s Day until the last day of school in May. During my first year teaching, we got an extra week of spring break, since we didn’t use any of our snow days.

My old daddy found me crying on that Monday morning.
“What’s wrong, honey?”

I sobbed, “We only have one more week of vacation before school starts again!”
“It’s all downhill from here, honey. You can do this,” he said, encouragingly. “Dry those tears and let’s share a cup of coffee at the breakfast room table.”

Life is always better with coffee, and with an older bunny to talk some sense back into you. At least my daddy was always willing to listen to my tales of woe. I must have been a real drama queen back when I was young, but surviving those “bad old days” meant I could take my turn later on and help other young rabbits through their peaks and valleys. As the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:10—

“Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

One of the ways I would escape reality was to watch those Japanese monster movies. They weren’t always long on plot or character development, but you could count on lots of action. Atragon, a huge monster of the Mu empire, an underwater civilization that was supposedly extinct, resurfaced in one movie to declare war against all nations. The sole hope of humanity seemed to lie on Captain Hachiro Jinguji, who refused to surrender, and his atomic super-submarine, the Gotengo. When the Mu and their evil Queen kidnapped his daughter, he decided to attack them. Earthquakes and battles between submarines and the great sea monster ensued.

I’ve always found watching monster movies and the concomitant destruction they cause easier than watching the actual mayhem reported on the evening news, but then I grew up in the Vietnam era. I always had difficulty with the people my parents’ age who wanted to “bomb the North Vietnamese back to the Stone Age.” Now when I see a Russian dictator doing this very deed to Ukraine, an independent nation, I have even more distaste for this activity. I’m reminded how easy it is for us to project a demonic nature on those who do terrible, unprovoked, and unimaginable deeds on others.

Krampus: The Punisher of Bad Children at Christmas

In the years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese worked out their fears of another nuclear horror or the after effects of that first one with their mutated monsters by atomic radiation. Today, we have movies which deal with our fears of robots taking over the world or artificial intelligence throwing over its creators.

These aren’t new themes, of course, for Greek mythology tells of the early Titan king Chronos, who swallowed all his children, so none would fulfill the prophecy of taking his throne. When Zeus was born, his mother spirited him away. When he grew up, he came home, caused his father to vomit up his siblings, and together they defeated him. This is how the gods came to rule the heavens, the oceans, and the underworld. These gods were made in the image of human kind, so while they were more beautiful, stronger, and immortal, they were also given to the same passions and consequences as those besetting humanity.

The Greeks and Romans were always in a contest of power, whether between the gods, gods and humans, or humans alone. Nothing was ever in a steady state. Their great leaders were known both for their military successes as well as their political prowess. They were leaders both in peace and war. The Ancient Greek philosopher
Heraclitus said, “War is both king of all and father of all, and it has revealed some as gods, others as men; it has made some slaves, others free” (no. 22 fragment B53).

Native American tribes have a story of the warring nature we each carry within us. It’s commonly known as “the two wolves” or “the grandfather story.”

“I have a fight going on in me,” the old man said. “It’s taking place between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

The grandfather looked at the grandson and went on. “The other embodies positive emotions. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. Both wolves are fighting to the death. The same fight is going on inside you and every other person, too.”

The grandson took a moment to reflect on this. At last, he looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee gave a simple reply. “The one you feed.”

We each have a wolf or a Godzilla within ourselves, but sometimes we fail to notice it. Instead we see it only in the outsiders, in our enemies, or those whom we’ve excluded from our privileged circle. How we manage this “darkness” within us, how we the battle the “enemy within,” is the great work Jung spoke to when he proposed the presence of the Shadow within each of us.

When the world is falling apart, we too feel unmoored. When a dictator attempts to redraw the borders of another country, our cognitive maps also fall apart. If that part of the world isn’t safe, is our world at risk also? Even though we know change is inevitable, will the apple cart be set on fire or just dumped over? We rabbits aren’t the bravest animals, so we can borrow trouble from the morrow, as well as from the next half hour. Somehow we have to revision our old lives, shed our old cocoons, and renew our selves for the new world to which we find ourselves awakening.

A hundred years ago, T. S. Elliott wrote these opening lines of his famous poem, The Waste Land. In the days after the end of World War I, his wife was suffering from mental illness and his marriage was falling apart because she was having an affair with another man. He too was suffering from the shared grief of the loss of so many in the Great War, as well as his own personal relationship problems. He wrote this poem at a sanatorium, where he was taking a “cure” for his own mental health.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

If we’re ever to understand the great mysteries of faith, we have to meet the darkness within us. That’s what is symbolized by the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ. The loneliness in the garden of Gethsemane, the descent into the grave, and the rising back to life once again. If ever we’ve had this loneliness, emptiness, and sense of rebirth, we’re participating in the Easter mystery. Once we die to our old selves, we can live the Christ life, not just a life assenting to the doctrines of the Christian faith.

Sea Bass by Paul Summer: recycled antique and modern tin, riveted to a hand-carved pinewood base, forming colorful scales

No one will be able to call us rabbits April Fools, even if they call us fools for Christ. Let’s celebrate this month some of the great faith holidays, and don’t forget your taxes are due. That perhaps is “the cruelest” event of April.

April 3—Ramadan begins—revelation of the Koran to Muhammad
April 10–Palm Sunday
April 14–Maundy Thursday
April 15–Good Friday & Income Tax Day
April 16–Passover & Holy Saturday Vigil
April 17–Easter
April 18–Easter Monday (Emmaus Monday)
April 24–Orthodox Easter
April 28–Holocaust Remembrance Day
April 29–Laylat al Qadr is the day in Ramadan that observes the night when the Prophet Mohammad received the first verses of the Koran

Joy, peace, and mysteries,

Cornelia

Atragon (Ishiro honda, 1963)—underwater monster takes Tokyo.

The Burmese Harp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burmese_Harp_(1956_film)

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot | Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land

The waste land : a facsimile and transcript of the original drafts, including the annotations of Ezra Pound / T. S. Eliot ; edited by Valerie Eliot. – British Library
http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=BLVU1&afterPDS=true&institution=BL&docId=BLL01010067643&_ga=2.6871095.423095881.1648426637-1262842970.1648307341

Justice and the Justification of War in Ancient Greece: Four Authors
Tristan K . Husby
http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/classicshp/1?utm_source=digitalcommons.conncoll.edu%2Fclassicshp%2F1&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

Artandicon's Blog

Crossroads of art and faith

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