full moon

Nice clouds on the Beck side yesterday, looking north. Park side of the condo is being painted, thus the crane on the left, reaching up over the gate. Working top down, painters may have finished the seventh floor, a relief, as it’s been going on awhile. For several weeks our furniture outside the front door was inside, stacked in the Beck bedroom, wrought-iron chairs and tea-cart that was in the — solarium they called it, sun room — family room at Linda’s house in the 1950s when we were dating as teenagers. Sentimental, we are fond of it. But while it was here in the bedroom by my bathroom I had to walk carefully by it lest I stub or even tear off a toe. Now the painting's done and the furniture’s back outside, my mind still takes care edging by where it was for weeks. Ghost chairs. Are all ghosts just as much in the mind? 

RSF&PTL as always this morning, personal devotional liturgy that starts my day off inviting divine presence. Beyond that, and after the glass of warm lemon water, today’s first mistake is scanning newspapers. U S Presidential race closing fast. Equally scary, Philippine president sets the wild dogs loose to execute vigilante justice on drug dealers, a frightening thought in that mobs make and lynch their own bad guys. Ganesh festival in India: I know a man with a Ganesh, elephant god with a story even more unlikely than some of ours. Police shoot and kill a boy with a bb gun; sad, sad sad; when I was a boy I proudly owned a bb pistol that looked as real as any firearm; sad, tragic, what exactly does one expect brandishing a gun around a cop? media will work it. On college campuses: frightening developments about speech, food, cultural mixing, halloween costumes; socio-political correctness seemingly taken to a far leftist extreme; Mao Tse Dung, where are you when we need you; my economics professor at UFlorida liked to draw a sketch that showed far left systems and far right systems circling round behind, converging in totalitarianism. Full moon: this morning I should have stuck with the gospel, even this coming Sunday’s gospel:

Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. (Luke 16:1f, NRSV). Say what?

Friday moonset

DThos+