Rabbit! Rabbit!

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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/

Painting Snow Scenes

adult learning, arkansas, art, Creativity, Faith, Family, Healing, Holy Spirit, hope, Imagination, Ministry, nature, Painting, renewal, texas, trees, vision

I’ve always been a weather watcher, even as a small child. One of my first memories of the weather was my Dad putting the finishing touches on cutting the front lawn just as the first raindrops would fall from the sky. When I grew up and had my own home, the scent of an impending thunderstorm would send me outside frantically to mow my own lawn. I finally asked Daddy why he always mowed just before the storm.

He replied, “It’s too hard to mow when the grass is wet and the ground is soggy.” I thought to myself, “Why don’t we just pick a sunny day, but that might be too easy, or we’re off doing fun things on that time.”

In Arkansas, our farm communities pay close attention to the weather, for the crops which are their livelihoods depend on it. In ancient times, keeping track of the seasons and knowing weather lore was important. Today we depend on weather forecasters for this arcane knowledge, but if we follow basic science, we learn about global patterns which affect our weather: El Niño, La Niña, the Polar Vortex, as well as the extremes brought on by climate change, such as more active hurricane seasons and intense temperatures, both hot and cold.

My parents grew up during the Great Depression. Their grandparents were the first generation off the farm, working either in town or on the railroad. When mom and dad first started out in a one room garage apartment, they practiced frugality. Later on, they always bought an extra can of whatever was on sale at the grocery store. They were always prepared for the emergency of another mouth at the table or a sudden ice storm, not that one often happened. Since I was following the national news, I had stocked up ahead of time on rice, beans, mixed veggies, chicken, and coffee. If snowmageddon were to arrive, I would meet it on a full stomach. It was only after the streets thawed several days later and I ventured out that I saw the stark emptiness of the grocery store shelves. Starbucks was out of many products also, since their suppliers are based in Texas.

Gary Joiner of the Texas Farm Bureau estimated damages to the agriculture sector alone could exceed $500,000,000 statewide. “The bulk of that will be in the Rio Grande Valley where the fruits and vegetables grown there really took a hit. Consumers will see an absence of some Texas products for a period of time because of the freeze.”

Winter Storm Uri causes $600,000,000 damages to Texas agriculture. This is a frozen citrus tree.

Texas cattle ranchers were in the midst of calving season, so to protect the newborns, they built hot boxes with heat lamps or brought the animals into their homes. Extreme weather calls for extreme acts of compassion.

Let’s contrast our modern views of Nature with the views presented in the Wisdom book of Job. In the book of Job, we hear one of his friends tell him, “God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend. For to the snow he says, ‘Fall on the earth’; and the shower of rain, his heavy shower of rain, serves as a sign on everyone’s hand, so that all whom he has made may know it” (37:5-7). This friend wants Job to understand God’s ways are inscrutable to mere human beings and neither Job, nor any of us, should question why bad things happen to good people.

Of course, Job won’t have any truck with this argument, and must have given his pals the look that says, “You boys take me for some kind of fool?” This sends his friends into a tizzy, so they keep piling on:

“From its chamber comes the whirlwind,

and cold from the scattering winds.

By the breath of God ice is given,

and the broad waters are frozen fast.

He loads the thick cloud with moisture;

the clouds scatter his lightning.

They turn round and round by his guidance,

to accomplish all that he commands them

on the face of the habitable world.

Whether for correction, or for his land,

or for love, he causes it to happen.” (Job 37:9-13)

His friends remind Job how God uses even natural events for God’s purposes. God can cause a snow storm to humble us (correction), to refresh the water supply (for the land), or to bring a community together (for love). We saw evidence of this during our recent snowstorm, which impacted not only Texas, but also the Lower 48 states, where by the morning of February 16, 73% of the continental USA was blanketed by snow. This was the most widespread snow cover in the contiguous U.S. since 2011. If we say “Mother Nature hit us with a whammy,” I wonder why we weren’t also blaming Old Man Winter. This is International Women’s Month after all, and we ought not to blame only the women for bad things!

Lots of bad things did happen, just from the back to back winter storms named Uri and Viola. In Texas alone, estimated losses from the extended freeze and power outages in Texas could reach $90 billion, with around $20 billion of those losses covered by insurance. Compare that to the entire 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. According to a new report from AccuWeather, the 2020 hurricane season was responsible for $60-65 billion in economic damages. This figure includes property damage as well as wage losses, business losses and bankruptcies, contamination of drinking water, municipal and state costs, federal assistance, cleanup costs and health costs.

One of the local electric providers, Just Energy, has sought bankruptcy protection due to unexpected costs. “The weather event caused the ERCOT wholesale market to incur charges of $55 billion over a seven day period, an amount they ordinarily incur over four years.” Brazos Electric Power Company has filed for Chapter 11 and Griddy is out of business, since its 10,000 customers have been given to other companies due to its violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The Texas Attorney General is seeking refunds for customers. Other utility companies are considering bankruptcy, or perhaps amortizing the high bill across ten years and letting their customers pay for it on time. Since these same companies failed to make the suggested winterizing changes to their physical plants a decade ago, I wonder why their problem is now their customers’ problem?

In this instance, everyone points a finger at everyone else. People died due to the cold weather and the utilities failure to prepare for it. Insurance rates are going up, not just in Texas, given that some of these companies have a national portfolio. Food costs are going up, due to scarce supplies and longer distances for delivery. Citrus will cost more for years until the orchards recover. So it’s an object lesson for the rest of us. As my old nannie used to say, “A stitching time saves nine,” while my daddy took the Texas plan of “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.” Unfortunately, his plan could leave me stranded on the side of the highway in a broke down car. I tend to take better care of my vehicle. He also never realized my brothers were fixing his car on the sly because he had that ornery streak.

Of course, current temperatures are now in the mid 70’s and low 80’s, so everyone is using the air conditioning. They went from the dead of winter into springtime. For parts of California and Arizona, this spring leaf out was the earliest in the 39-year record. Every one to four years, Texas has an early spring, whereas central Arkansas has a late spring every five to ten years. The further south you go toward the equator, the more pronounced the seasonal extremes become.

Of course back in biblical times, folks had weather lore, but no satellites to observe the land from on high. They could keep oral and written accounts of the past weather events, so the memories of the elders were treasured. Job’s friends try to make the events of nature the result of God’s actions, but then God answers Job out of the whirlwind:

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?” (38:22-23)

I’d never accuse God of mansplaining to his creatures, but maybe “Godsplaining” is a better term: “Are you competent to answer this question? How do you know for certain? What experience have you had that allows you to speak of things you can’t possibly know?” We human beings haven’t been privileged to walk among the clouds or to know the hidden halls where the frozen treasures are stored. Yet we persist in talking about the hidden wisdom of God as if we were initiates to privileged information. We can’t know God fully as yet, for God is fully spirit and we are both body and spirit. As Paul reminds us, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

The amazing climax of this book is God’s appearance to Job and his affirmation of Job’s understanding of God’s nature. Job tells God:

“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).

Job might have said today: My bad. I’m just saying words. Many words. The best words. Now I know it’s all just a word salad. Don’t listen to my friends. They mean well. Just trying to help. What do they know? Like me—not much.

Since we in Arkansas didn’t get the brunt of this storm, our emotional reaction to it wasn’t strong or deep. This might have been different if we had gone through an extended period of time without power. Many of us noted only the closings of local businesses or the lack of certain products on the shelves. My utility bill wasn’t much higher than last month. Our paintings of the recent snowstorm reflected this experience. I asked our group to bring a photograph of the snow from their home life. Mike brought his backyard deck and Gail brought her tree filled landscape. I worked on a traditional landscape as seen from my window high above the lake, looking out over the bridge. Our snowscapes were calm, quiet, and serene. There wasn’t a sign of trauma anywhere, unlike the ongoing mass trauma event still affecting the state of Texas.

However, the extreme weather changes aren’t just limited to Texas, for currently about 1% of the world’s population lives in a hot zone that scientists expect to expand to affect about 19% of the world’s people. Already people in Guatemala are leaving land that is getting too hot and too unpredictable for rainfall to grow enough to feed their families. Climate change is bringing them northwards. We can expect our crop plantings to move northward as the temperatures warm, even though this may take decades. We can prepare to welcome climate migrants or we can help restore and renew the face of the earth so they can live in their homelands and be able to raise and feed their families in peace.

Temperature Increases Around the World per Decade

In the map above, we can see the temperature difference between summer and winter months (per decade) from 1979-2016. Red shows a large temperature difference between the seasons, while blue shows a small temperature difference.

God’s promise in Genesis 8:22 after the destructive flood still holds true: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” God doesn’t promise us the world will always stay the same, for we have the freedom to change our world for good or ill. We can work in cooperation with God, or against God’s desires. As the Psalmist reminds us:

“When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.” (104:30)

Winter Storm Uri

https://weather.com/safety/winter/news/2021-02-14-winter-storm-uri-south-midwest-northeast-snow-ice

Texas insurance losses Uri

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2021/03/01/603269.htm

Historic Hurricane Losses in 2020

https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2020/12/07/historic-2020-hurricane-season-responsible-for-60-65-billion-in-economic-damage/?slreturn=20210210172220

Just Energy Seeks Bankruptcy After Texas Loss

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-09/pimco-backed-just-energy-seeks-bankruptcy-after-texas-loss

Extreme Impact on Texas Agriculture

https://krock1017fm.com/winter-storm-uri-impact-on-texas-agriculture/

The Great Climate Migration Has Begun

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html?referringSource=articleShare

Temperature Map Source: Randel (2018) Data source: Santer et al. (2018)

Carbon Brief: Powerful evidence of global warming’s effect on seasons found in troposphere

https://www.carbonbrief.org/powerful-evidence-global-warmings-effect-seasons-found-troposphere

USA National Phenology Network: Status of Spring

https://www.usanpn.org/news/spring

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to March!

arkansas, art, Attitudes, change, Faith, Family, haiku, hope, nature, Pi Day, renewal, Spring Equinox, St. Patrick’s Day, texas, trees

March is Women’s History month and the time of the Vernal Equinox. Spring can’t come too soon for this old rabbit. While my heater keeps my den cozy and at an even temperature, I’m convinced my bones are a xylophone knocking a chattering tone inside the multiple layers of clothing and afghans in which I’m wrapped. Going outside isn’t on my list of things to do. I’m actually thankful for zooming and online shopping.

Every year my local community has its brush with a false spring, only to have another round of winter weather come round to slap it silly. In New York, the maple syrup run begins about March, while sap starts to flow between mid-February and mid-March. Farther south, in the Ozark Mountains, sugar maple sap can be collected as early as January. The exact time of year depends upon where you live and weather conditions. Sap flows when daytime temperatures rise above freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit /0 Celsius) and nighttime temperatures fall below freezing. The rising temperature creates pressure in the tree generating the sap flow. This is basically a transfer of the sap from the tree above the ground and the root system below the ground. The sap generally flows for 4 to 6 weeks, with the best sap produced early on in the sap-flowing season.

While I don’t have any maple trees in my neck of the woods, I do believe in using real maple syrup on my pancakes and crepes. I keep a homemade pancake mix ready for those days I really need a comfort food breakfast. All I have to do is add a couple of beaten eggs and some water. The instant milk, flours, salt, and baking powder is already included. No one needs to buy this in a package. I can add chocolate chips, chopped nuts, or bits of fruit for variety. It’s so good and filling with uncured bacon and only a tablespoon of syrup. Of course, this plan only works if I have utilities at my rabbit den. Otherwise I retreat to the condo hallway, where the condo association’s generator keeps the emergency lights on and two live outlets. Crockpot food and hot coffee become the food of the rabbit gods in such crisis situations.

A wonderful coincidence of joy In New York and New England is the sap starts up in the sugar maples the very day the bluebird arrives, and the sugar-making begins forthwith. “The bird is generally a mere disembodied voice; a rumor in the air for two or three days before it takes visible shape before you,” as John Burroughs wrote in Wake-Robin, first published in 1871.

January through March, November and December are the usual months with snowfall. The month with the most snowfall in Hot Springs is February when snow falls for 1.7 days and typically aggregates up to 0.94″ (24mm) of snow. This February in two days we had more than two feet of snow from back to back polar punches. It was cold, but not record setting, unlike the state’s coldest day, when the city of Gravette set the record at -29° F on February 13, 1905. The latest snow in Arkansas history happened in May of 2013, when Decatur, a town near the northwest border, got five inches of snowfall! I’m hoping we don’t get a late spring snow, post vernal equinox. Mother Nature would add insult to indignity.

While we Arkansas rabbits were iced in, we didn’t have to endure the ongoing trauma of our fellow Texans to the south. Sadly, they were out of power and/or water for several days running. Extreme weather events will catch us bunnies by surprise if we don’t listen to those who know about the changing climate. Of course, if it costs money to prevent systemic utility failures, sometimes we decide to take a chance the weather situation won’t repeat itself. Suffering costs money too: lost wages, insurance claims, health risks, vehicle accidents, and food shortages. An article in Bloomberg estimated about $50 billion in damages from this recent winter storm season, according to AccuWeather, a commercial forecasting company. In comparison, the entire 2020 hurricane season caused “only” $60 billion in damage.

Rabbits need to ask if saving money in the short term is worth losing money over the long term. Another way to ask is how much risk are we willing to take? Mrs. Rabbit is always telling Peter and the others, “Don’t go into the garden when Mr. McGregor is there. You’ll come to no good end.” Of course this is when all the foolish, inexperienced rabbits go to the garden! My mother rabbit continually reminded the younger me, “Experience is a hard teacher and a diploma from the school of hard knocks is very expensive.” Like her, I earned every strand of my grey hairs.

Usually in the springtime, we’re thinking of our gardens and perusing seed catalogs. We can count on our local Walmart having some early plants to set out to brighten our gardens, but this year we’re all looking for snow shovels. The winter haiku of Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) clearly expressed his own viewpoints comparing it to the other seasons. While October to December was winter in Japan, as the old calendar designated it, his poem still fits Arkansas’ late spring snow:

Let’s go out

To see the snow view

Where we slip and fall.

But the snow won’t last forever and neither will standard time. Yes, just as the days begin to get longer and we revel in the wonder of a sunrise and a sunset while we’re still awake, along comes the annual conversion to DST, for daylight saving time begins on March 14^th, also known as Pie Day, because 3.1417 is the number of Pi in mathematics. If you make an apple pie for Sunday, you might want to add a few drops of green food coloring to the apples, so your leftovers will be good for St. Patrick’s day on the 17^th.

Of course, the vernal equinox is our big excitement in the month of March, for this full moon governs two religious holidays celebrated by Jews and Christians. They’re linked, of course, because Jesus was a Jew. The Passover is celebrated to recall the people’s release from bondage in Egypt and their time with God in the wilderness until they reached the promised land. Because Jesus was crucified on the Eve of the Passover, Palm Sunday and Easter typically fall around the time of the Jewish Passover. The spring equinox falls on March 20, which also marks the Persian New Year. Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs after the vernal equinox, which signifies the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere.

These times of renewal celebrated in the various faith communities remind us spring is a time of new beginnings and new growth. We can have a renewed hope when we shake off the cold burdens of a long winter. We can have a new spirit awaken in our heart when we hear a songbird sing its melody. When the trees leaf out in their first green lace, our frowns begin to thaw. One day in the month of March, we may find ourselves throwing back the curtains in the morning to greet the cerulean sky with a song:

Blue skies Smiling at me

Nothing but blue skies Do I see

Bluebirds Singing a song

Nothing but bluebirds All day long

(Irving Berlin, Blue Skies, 1927)

March is a month of hope and optimism, for who plants a garden except in hope? We don’t know if we’ll get sufficient rain or sun, or if we’ll have too much of a good thing. Farmers and gardeners are like parents, for they bring new life into this world with the hope they’ll be able to tend the gift God has given them. As Emily Dickinson says in her 1891 poem, “Hope,”

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all, ….

This rabbit still thinks hope endures, and if “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. Birds fly over the rainbow, why, then oh why can’t I?” I’ll have another cup of hot mint tea and contemplate this journey in my deepest heart. May your garden always grow the fruits of Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Quotes About Bluebirds

http://www.sialis.org/quotes.htm

Making Maple Sugar for the Hobbyist

https://tapmytrees.com/tap-tree/

Making Maple Sugar in the Ozarks

https://edibleozarkansas.ediblecommunities.com/things-do/water-tree-making-maple-syrup-ozarks

Winter haiku poems, Matsuo Basho’s examples | Masterpieces of Japanese Culture

https://www.masterpiece-of-japanese-culture.com/literatures-and-poems/haiku/matsuo-basho/haiku-poems-winter-examples-matsuo-basho

The Single Largest Snowfall in Arkansas Happened in 2011

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/arkansas/ar-2011-snow-fall-record/

Texas Grid Calls Off Emergency as Cold Eases: Energy Update

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/texas-crisis-deepens-economic-fallout-spreads-energy-update

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Words by Edgard Y. Harburg, Over the Rainbow, from the film Wizard of Oz, 1939

Snow Covered Landscape

art, Creativity, Faith, Imagination, nature, Painting, photography, texas, vision

I covered up an old painting I didn’t care about, one of those “unsold inventory pieces,” which inhabit every artist’s storage areas. In the old days, artists would burn their least good works in the winter to stay warm. While we might want to see these works, artists burned them for a reason. They made better fires than art. We artists know art and we know what we like: excellence. If a work doesn’t meet our standards, we can destroy it and move on. Texans have been burning their furniture in the recent winter snowstorm, when their statewide power grid failed. They can always get new tables and chairs, but no one wants to lose fingers or toes.

I used to think my art was a precious thing, as if it were alive. Now I’m more discerning, for a work needs to hold together and still speak to me for a long time for it to be a “quality piece.” Since I’m still pushing the boundaries of an idea, sometimes my work falls short of my goals. Yet if I ever get to the point at which I’m just repeating techniques and forms, I won’t be enjoying myself. I’ll move on to something else, I’ll guarantee you for sure! I was born on a Thursday, and like all such children, I have far to go. I will most likely never stop searching for a better way to express my creative journey or my experiences in this world.

I’ve often wondered about the artists who find one style and work it out infinitely, as compared to those who develop and change over the years. I love the landscape, and have given priority to God’s creation in my own creative endeavors. I feel closest to God in nature and identity with God’s creative energies when I’m making my art. Making art becomes a spiritual experience for me, since it brings me into union with God. I’ve often wondered if the artists who refine only one style ever end up losing their sense of creative joy. While a gallery might find it easier to sell our products if they look like our previous work, artists have to decide if they paint for public approval and sales or for continuous, creative purposes.

This decision is easier for those who have other means of financial support, but for the most part this has been the lot of artists over the years. A few well heeled families may support their creative endeavors, but many others are the starving artists of legend. Most of us end up in the latter category, since we don’t work full time at either our art or our day job. We sacrifice for our muse.

So what does the spiritual life have to do with the life of an artist? Most people think artists spend their lives wantonly drinking in cafes until late at night. These are “artist pretenders,” since actual artists are called to the solitude of their workplaces and the silence of the moving spirit in the pushing and pulling of the media in which they work. If they command their materials, they produce one level of work, but if they surrender to the movement of the spirit, they enter into a dialogue with the work which comes to birth through their hands. In a sense, we cannot “make art,” but we “allow art to become a reality in our presence.”

For those who insist on “tackling their work” or “achieving mastery over a medium,” this attitude of surrendering before the canvas or artwork is difficult to understand. As Jason Nesmith, the captain of the fictional Galaxy Quest spaceship said, “Never give-up, never surrender.” This is such a trope of television writing, the movie makers had to poke fun at it. What’s sad is we confuse our spiritual life with the movies. Sometimes the best course is to surrender. When we realize we’re at the end of our ropes, we don’t tie a knot and hold on. We let go and let God. We quit trying to fix it and control it. We offer compassion to the broken, rest to the tired, refreshment to the hungry, and cheer to the downhearted.

So it is with a painting. It starts with an idea, in this case, I wanted to recycle old material into a new purpose. I also wanted to revisit the aerial view of the lake area where I live, but with snow. I cut and sewed one afternoon until I had enough shapes to glue on my square canvas. You can see the tapestry elements as well as the old embroidery, which I think dates from the 1970’s.Then I set it aside to dry overnight.

The next day, I used my acrylic paints to put the first layers on the canvas. I ended up with more warm colors than I intended, but the under layers were also warm reds and golds. I was losing energy and couldn’t feel the painting speaking to me any longer. This is “artist talk” for losing sensitivity to the changing field of colors on the surface. It’s similar to not being able to recognize the look of boredom on a conversation partner’s face while you go on and on with your tale. In the studio, you lose the work and elsewhere, you lose someone’s attention. When my blood sugar drops, I have to be careful, for I lose my receptiveness to the subtle movements of color and form. If I can no longer hear the work speaking to me,I know I need to stop and come back later.

The next day, I crunched about in the snow for about fifteen minutes, but under the fluff is ice, so I didn’t stay out long. My cozy condo is a better choice. I repainted most of the warm colors with cool blues and pinks, and highlighted the leaf shapes in the “forested area.” We have two large condominium projects near the lakeside and a large highway near the right side of the image. The rest of our landscape is snow covered trees. Once those odd warm areas calmed down, then I could hear again the brighter notes of red and gold against the violets and grays. The hard edges where the fabric joins together follows along the roadways for the most part.

After I completed this work, I hung it on the wall and compared it to one I’d done prior to this which has all the boathouses around our lakeshore area. I decided to repaint the water with the colors of the clouds of the sky. Now I’m happier with the painting because the same families of colors float over both the land and the water areas. It’s more unified.

The good news is while I may not perfect my vision during my lifetime, for I’ll always see more I can do and my hand will surely fail to capture what my imagination can conceive, I’ll always have the assurance of God’s love:

“So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.” ~~ 1 John 4:16-19

May God fill you with joy and peace,

Cornelia

Chapter IV: Income and Earnings

https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Artists_and_Other_Cultural_Workers.pdf

Alone in the Woods

art, Attitudes, Children, coronavirus, Creativity, Faith, Family, Garvan Woodlands Garden, Health, Imagination, incarnation, nature, Painting, renewal, Spirituality, stewardship, Stress, texas, Travel, trees, Uncategorized, vision

“Turn Around,” I heard the voice whisper.

Life for extroverts in the Age of Social Distancing is difficult. They need people to bounce their ideas off of, friends to hear their tales of daily struggles or victories, and most of all, the transfer of energy between the parties to feel alive. For introverts, most of whom need space and quiet to restore their energies, the “stay at home unless absolutely necessary” directives are more welcome than not. A good book, some quiet music, and a calming drink of herbal tea is a balm for the body and the soul.

Of course, if you have children, activity is your middle name, no matter where you fall on the spectrum of extroversion or introversion. Taking walks in the neighborhood of your city is an opportunity to learn about architecture. How is it built, what are the forms called, and how many styles can you identify as you walk about? You can make an art project from this walk about, by building a shoebox city, a collage from magazines or scrap paper, or making a map.

When my daughter was young, we lived in south Texas, so our walks meant we might stumble upon a limestone fossil creature. She was always amazed some animal from the prehistoric times would find its way into our modern age, even if it were a lifeless stone. To find a treasure from 100,000,000 years ago always added excitement to our jaunts about the home place.

If you live in the countryside, you might have access to the woods or a forest, or you can go there. We haven’t decided to lock down everyone in their home yet. However, it’s my “Dr. Cornie” opinion we all should limit our goings and doings to the utmost necessities of grocery, health, and essential services. While I’m not a “real doctor,” those of us who are “Coronavirus Cathys and Chucks” can spread this disease to others, even if we don’t feel sick or have symptoms.

In this Age of Coronavirus, staying put at home means we “flatten the curve” of the spread of the disease. While many will have a mild disease, too many will have a difficult outcome, especially when they face a lack of hospital beds and equipment to treat them. Let’s think of these others, and not just of ourselves alone.

Autumn Sunlight at Poverty Point, Louisiana

With this admonition in mind, I invite you to travel virtually in solitude to the woods. Many of my paintings are of nature, for I feel close to God in nature. My parents may have been getting a vacation from me when I went to summer church camp at the old Works Project Administration site at Caney Lake, but I connected with the God who meets us in nature while I was there.

The Germans have a constructed word Waldeinsamkeit, which roughly translates to “the feeling of being alone in the woods.” The structure of the word says it all: “wald” means woods/forest, and “einsamkeit” means loneliness or solitude. The Grimm Brothers wrote many fairy tales, which were also set in the famed German Black Forest: Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood to name a few.

I don’t know if children read these stories today, since they’re a tad scary, but my parents grew up in the Great Depression and fought the Great War in Europe against the Nazis. They helped us through the imaginary, scary events so we could take on the actual, distressing situations. Practicing the easy operations in a safe space helped us confront our fears in real life.

Sometimes I’ll walk in the woods and hear a voice calling me to turn around. It’s not an audible voice, as if an outside agent were speaking to me. It’s also not my own inner sense, as “I should turn around.” Instead, I perceive a stillness from beyond, and the word I hear is “Turn around and look.”

If nature speaks to us, it’s because “Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things God has made.” (Romans 1:20). Does this mean all persons see God’s hand in creation? Of course not, for some can’t even see the image of God in their own faces when they look in the mirror as they brush their teeth in the morning. Perhaps this is why the city streets are littered, the country roads are trashed, and violence to humanity is a sad trouble in every zip code. If we are God’s people, we’ll care for one another and for God’s world.

Even in the Age of Coronavirus, when our solid underpinnings have been cut down from under us and we have crashed to the ground with the noise of a giant sequoia tearing through its smaller companions, we don’t lose hope and we don’t lose heart. “Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Walk in the woods, in silence, and renew your soul, with Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Waldeinsamkeit
I do not count the hours I spend
In wandering by the sea;
The forest is my loyal friend,
Like God it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make
Of skirting hills to lie,
Bound in by streams which give and take
Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
Or down the oaken glade,
O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made.

Cities of mortals woe-begone
Fantastic care derides,
But in the serious landscape lone
Stern benefit abides.

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,
And merry is only a mask of sad,
But, sober on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.

There the great Planter plants
Of fruitful worlds the grain,
And with a million spells enchants
The souls that walk in pain.

Still on the seeds of all he made
The rose of beauty burns;
Through times that wear and forms that fade,
Immortal youth returns.

The black ducks mounting from the lake,
The pigeon in the pines,
The bittern’s boom, a desert make
Which no false art refines.

Down in yon watery nook,
Where bearded mists divide,
The gray old gods whom Chaos knew,
The sires of Nature, hide.

Aloft, in secret veins of air,
Blows the sweet breath of song,
O, few to scale those uplands dare,
Though they to all belong!

See thou bring not to field or stone
The fancies found in books;
Leave authors’ eyes, and fetch your own,
To brave the landscape’s looks.

Oblivion here thy wisdom is,
Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
For a proud idleness like this
Crowns all thy mean affairs.

Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Project Gutenberg Free PDF
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2591/old/grimm10.pdf

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://www.iep.utm.edu/theo-nat/

The Burning Bush

art, Children, Faith, Family, grief, nature, Painting, photography, purpose, renewal, school shootings, texas, Travel, Uncategorized, vision

How long does a new and unusual aspect of our environment need to be in place before we notice it? On the other hand, how long does it have to persist before we treat it as the new normal and begin to ignore it? THE BURNING BUSH

My mom and dad were married right after World War II, so they’d lived together for nearly forty six years when I came home for a visit from seminary one weekend. Right off the bat, I noticed something differ about my dad.

“You’ve gone and grown a mustache.”

“You like it?” He asked, as he smoothed the unruly hairs into place.

“Oh yeah! You look like a perfect Southern gentleman.”

He smiled. Perfect and gentleman was his aim.

My mother, who was sitting in the identical chair next to his, separated only by a small table with a lamp and magazines, craned her head around that lamp to look at him.

“When did you grow this mustache?”

“Mother! You’ve slept in the same bed with daddy every single night of your entire life. You always kiss each other good night. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed the hair on his upper lip!”

A little rattled, she replied, “It’s always dark when we go to sleep.”

I laughed. My daddy smiled. My mother always had an answer for every thing. I noticed his mustache because I hadn’t seen him in a while, whereas mother had watched the slow progression of the hiding of his upper lip. I should say, it’s been my experience the husband usually fails to notice his wife’s new haircut, an act which causes much family drama.

When I travel, I don’t go from point to point with the goal of arriving as soon as possible. If that were the case, I’d fly. In my car, if I see an interesting place, I’ll go visit, since the journey is more important than the destination. Once I’ve arrived, I even make side trips, just for a little exercise. I was walking around Lake Bridgeport, in the town of Runaway Bay, Texas, when I stumbled upon these grasses, flowers, and small trees. The afternoon light caught the center stalk so it glowed its reds and golds. The few leaves left from autumn’s color, which hadn’t been blown away by the seasonal rains quivered in the light breeze. A few flowers added color to a rather grey afternoon.

Why would ordinary weeds catch my eye? There’s nothing remarkable or heroic about weeds. Most people spend good money to rid their lawns of ugly and invasive weeds. Here around the lake is a wild place, however, and the weed is in its natural state. This red weed is unique among the other natural grasses, for its not a single blade, but a stem with alternating leaves. I had to pick my way through some underbrush to find an opening from which I could take a good photo. I felt as if this weed had called to me.

I’ve often wondered how long the bush burned in the wilderness before Moses looked up from counting his father in law’s sheep and said, “What is this? I must go see it!” Extraordinary events happen all the time, yet we’re too consumed with our day to day busyness to see the glories of God’s hand at work in the world. Or we come to a watershed moment, when the bush would burn brightly for us, and throw water to quench its fire, for “it’s never been done, it can’t be done, it’s always been this way, and people will never change.”

If Moses believed this, he’d have never followed God’s call back to Egypt. The Hebrew children would still be slaves in Egypt. But Moses trusted God. This is called a sea change, or a transformation. We don’t do this just on our own, but by a power at work greater than our own. We might resist, but God persists.

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh,

and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you:

when you have brought the people out of Egypt,

you shall worship God on this mountain.”

~~ Genesis 3:11-12

What sea change is happening in our world today? Are people finally fed up with treating human life as a cheap commodity? We do this if we treat people as objects to be used and then thrown away when they’re worn out or too sick to be worked hard. When we fail to fund schools and health care for all, we don’t get the best people for our citizens or our employees. If only the wealthy can afford health care and a quality education, then our democracy suffers, for we will have a permanent underclass and a qualified few. This bifurcation doesn’t bode well for the future. Does a bush burn in the wilderness for any of my readers?

Are we tired of exchanging precious human lives for a shibboleth? The word means “stream” in Hebrew and was used as a sorting test to distinguish warriors of Gilead from those of Ephraim. Today, the 2nd Amendment serves the same purpose, because the National Rifle Association gives politicians large amounts of money for their campaign coffers and spends extra money on their behalf also. The NRA is the front for gun manufacturers, who profit if they sell more guns. They never want any restrictions on any freedom, but we don’t live in an anarchy, so a democracy can restrict certain aspects of gun ownership and use.

Public mass shootings have occurred on average every 172 days since 1982. Since September 6, 2011, there’s been 14 mass shootings at an average interval of less than 172 days. These don’t include domestic violence or criminal activity. Seven of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history have taken place in a school, including Sandy Hook elementary and Virginia Tech University. The deaths at Stoneman Douglas HS in Florida were the 180th mass shooting since 2009 and the third mass shooting in 2018. By Valentine’s Day in 2018, 17 school shootings had been reported, and in the week after, even more.

Schools now receive an average of 50 threats of violence daily, compared with 10 per day at the end of 2017, NPR reported. Since I began this blog in 2011, mass killings in public spaces have snuffed out the lives of 270 persons in grocery stores, church sanctuaries, schools, post offices, and restaurants. In seven years, an average of 38.6 individuals did not celebrate with cake and ice cream on their next circuit of the earth around the sun. I didn’t know any of these personally, but we may have lost the next Steve Jobs or the next Mother Theresa, or someone who would have fought happiness to their small corner of the world.

Some want to arm the schools, but what about the other places of mass shootings? Why not just ban the weapon which enables the taking of mass casualties? Or are the lives of grocery shoppers less valued than school children? Ask an orphan if a parent is valued. We don’t want to become an armed state in America, or at least I’m not for it. Perhaps the NRA wants this, for the gunmakers would boost their bottom lines. They make enough money off the rest of their product lines.

Some would say, opioids take MORE lives, as does tobacco use (1,300 deaths per day). These substances are legal and on the market we expect people to use them responsibly. They’re also addictive and controlled. The largest incidents are mostly since 2004 when the ban on semiautomatic weapons lapsed. These weapons, civilian equivalents to military type issue, are meant for mass killing, not for sport, hunting, or target shooting. Their high velocity ammunition doesn’t just pierce flesh, but obliterates it. Survival rates are slim and none.

I wonder if this moment in our nation’s life is our burning bush, our opportunity to hear the voice of God calling to us, and we rise up to set our people free from this pain and insanity.

“I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt;

I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.

Indeed, I know their sufferings,

and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians,

and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land,

a land flowing with milk and honey…”

~~ Exodus 3:7-8a

IRREPRESSIBLE SLEEPINESS

art, Creativity, Faith, generosity, Healing, Health, Meditation, Ministry, purpose, purpose, renewal, sleep, Spirituality, Stress, texas, Uncategorized, United Methodist Church, vision

Irrepressible sleepiness–it comes over one at times.

My night class on World Religions at seminary with Ruben Habito began with silent breathing. Centering, he called it. Some of us called it falling asleep. A long day of work or classes, or both, with a short night of sleep before an early morning wake up alarm marked our days back then. We were fueled by liquid caffeine and too many carbs. We ran on the adrenaline of excitement and the necessity to cram two lives into one day. We were crazy people, but we didn’t know it.

We didn’t realize the gift of silence and quiet our zen master was offering to us. We were doers, not accustomed to being. To be silent, still, and to breathe in and out as we sought an unmoving center after the hubbub of our day was our bedtime ritual, not a preparation for learning. More than a few of us crossed over into LaLa Land.

Some time during the class, we would return to this world, much refreshed from our power nap. We could get any notes we missed from a less sleep deprived classmate. Our zen master was also a priest, who knew our needs and offered this gift of ministry for his congregation. He wasn’t bothered by our sleeping through his lectures, for if we needed to rest, God would take care of our learning elsewhere.

When I went out as a pastor in the church, I remembered this lesson of grace. When people fell asleep in church, I knew God would bring the message to them later from the ones who stayed awake. If their lives were so out of whack they needed to sleep in church, I needed to pray for them. After all, it’s not about me, it’s about God.

“I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world! — John 16:33

Cornelia DeLee: Christ Overcoming the World, acrylic on canvas, 2015. (36″ X 36″)

THE MOMENT BEFORE

art, Creativity, Faith, nature, Painting, Spirituality, texas

The moment before my daughter came into this world, my husband reminded me of the doctor’s orders: “Whatever you do, don’t push!”

“Don’t tell me (horrible expletive deleted) not to push! I’ll (more expletives deleted) push if I want to! His look of shock and horror lasted only seconds before he turned for the hallway door to shout, “I think this baby is coming now!”

We had been at the hospital all day long waiting to induce my labor. The nurses misunderstood my doctor’s orders, so they only gave me a bit of the oxytocin, but not enough to start the cramping of my womb. I felt a mild twinge, but nothing exciting was on the program at zero dark thirty in the morning. Coffee break came and went. My husband ate lunch as I sucked on a damp wash rag. Hospital food never looked so good.

Exhausted, I napped in the afternoon. Sometime after five, my doctor made his evening rounds “Why hasn’t this woman had her baby yet? Crank it up!”

Normal labor sneaks up on a woman. My own mother said she attended a picnic the day before my birth, so she thought the initial twinges of labor were a spot of indigestion from the day before. My daddy, who was a doctor, always got a good laugh from mother’s self diagnosing, for indigestion comes sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, labor moves progressively from mild to intense and from widely spaced to closely packed. The moment a child enters this world is still unique. When the nurse turned the handle on the oxytocin, a flood of chemicals hit my blood stream all at once. In a moment, I knew I had been hit by a freight train. I went from zero to ten on the pain scale instantly. I was glad my husband had his senses about him, because mine had been knocked to Pluto, which was still a planet back in these ancient times.

When the moment cane for me to push, I knew it was time. To live in a state of awareness and to be open to the information and stimuli all about us is to live in the present moment some say, “I couldn’t do this, for I would go crazy with all the details to be sorted out!” I think those who live in the present moment realize the unity of all things. Some call it the ONE, while others see the ONE who makes all things. As an artist, I see the beauty that flows through all things. As a person of faith, I see images which remind me of stories from my holy scriptures. The cloud in Christian symbolism represents God’s presence, for God, in the form of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, led the Hebrew people during the wilderness wandering. In the baptism of Jesus, the cloud opens to reveal the Holy Spirit in a bodily form, like a dove.
“And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”” (Mark 1:10-11)

in the moments when we take a stand, walk outside of our comfort zone, stretch our boundaries, our reach for the stars, we need to realize the affirmation comes only afterwards. It doesn’t come from the people who are looking on from the banks of the water. It comes from above, from the cloud enshrouded God. And we may be the only ones who hear God’s voice. We mustn’t let the cacophony of this world distract us from hearing the still, small voice of God. Sometimes we need to practice our own silence in order to hear the silence of the present moment speaking to us more clearly.

Artandicon's Blog

Crossroads of art and faith

texas

Rabbit! Rabbit!

Painting Snow Scenes

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to March!

Snow Covered Landscape

Alone in the Woods

The Burning Bush

IRREPRESSIBLE SLEEPINESS

THE MOMENT BEFORE

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