Pictures of a Maturing Spring

A Day in the Life

 May 12, 2020:   The 52nd day of sheltering

Outside my window at 5 AM: The Morning Stars:  Moon, Jupiter and even Saturn and maybe Mars

And the Sunset at about 8 PM

Jesus and the Time of Pandemic

JESUS IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC

"OH FREEDOM"

ART OF DR. DAVID DRISKELL,  (1931-2020)  VICTIM OF COVID-19  

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTIST AND FACULTY MEMBER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND 

“There are truths that can be discovered only through suffering or from the critical vantage point of extreme situations.”    

 Ignacio Martin-Baro, S.J., martyr at the UCA, El Salvador, 1989

The voracious presence of COVID-19 stuns the world.   We who believe that God always helps us in our works of love are numb.  How can God allow this destructive virus?   But, truly, to make it worse such extreme situations present themselves often.    We remind ourselves of our struggle to learn what God teaches us in the Shoah, in our history of slavery or in frequent natural disasters.  These situations take place in the world our God creates and each challenges our understanding.

We want our God to exercise what we think of as control over His creation.  And when He does not do what we think best, we experience sorrow and distrust.   In our confusion there is nowhere to go but to turn to the suffering Jesus who speaks to his Father and to us from his cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  But Jesus will not save himself and call on a display of his Father’s power.  Within this question he trusts in the promise of resurrected life.

Crises of every kind cause us to echo Christ’s words.  We look at Him carrying out his love for us.    He teaches us sinners the kind of life to which His Father’s creation calls us.   We react and He must endure the price of our stubborn refusal to hear him.   But if we listen we come to know a God of love who will not force Himself on us or put us under a spell of power.   Rather this God creates a world where we in turn, without coercion but freely and with hope, can imitate His love for us and return it in our love for others.   

God calls us in this age of the pandemic to acknowledge our shared dignity as His family and extend ourselves in care for one another.   We give God thanks and praise that so many are answering that call.  

COVID 19? No problem for Geese

MOM AND DAD SHELTERED TOGETHER FOR FOUR WEEKS!

THEN THEIR OFFSPRING APPEARED ALREADY PREPARED TO SWIM!

WATCH AS AN EVIL VIDEOGRAPHER BREAKS UP A RELAXED FAMILY GATHERING:



https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q44Iwn5GHJvFC8ZuywBOHMHdGGqPdeUk/view?usp=sharing

Goose and Gander Back Again

GOOSE AND GANDER

While we shelter on the property, the goose and gander find shelter in our pond for their most important role in life.    

They're back again for the fourth Spring in a row and they are nesting in exactly the same spot!  They even seem to remember who we are and do not get distressed when we approach the nest!  They will bring forth their young in about a week.

May we also profit in some way from our need to 

"stay-at-home".

"Here's lookin' at ya."

Covid 19, Time for Hope

A blossoming "fruit" tree on our grounds.   One of the first days of summer provided perfect sun and sky as background.

Even while we mourn the deaths of thousands whose lives are taken by COVID 19, at the same time these very deaths are moving medical professionals to search for a long-term fix that will end this pandemic.    So many of us are living today because of so-called miracle drugs and vaccines that owe their existence to skillful and committed scientists.   I benefited myself from penicillin, a drug that first became available only in the years that I needed it to cure my rheumatic fever.    Had I been born and contracted the disease just twenty years earlier, I may not have lived past my eighth birthday.   

With this experience I am naturally optimistic.    Our optimism, however, is often challenged.  The predictions of treatments that will save the lives of cancer patients have often been too optimistic.    And the nature of this new virus may be such that it will always be ahead of our ability to control it.   That being said, we have proven our ability to control other such viruses.

But my optimism also has its source in hope.   As a Christian I understand the scriptural record of Jesus’ healings as a revelation of God’s hopes for humanity.    I think of the revelation in this way:  God understood that we ourselves, created in God’s image, had the ability to better care for one another.   If Jesus knew nothing about medical science, he shared with his heavenly Father in this hope-filled understanding.    He shared the Father’s confidence that in imitating his own love for us we would develop new talents for compassion and care. 

The committed and curious health care workers and scientists among us are the saints who have practiced this compassion with all of their energy.   They are doing Christ’s work.    God alone knows how it will all play out.   But our efforts at compassion and care can only enhance the plan that God has for us.

90 minutes before sunrise March 16

A Clear Morning!

And the planets are still making their presence known six days later, no sheltering in place for them.   in fact Mars has moved down and past Jupiter while Saturn keeps its distance.