Wednesday wandering aimless

 

There are Disappointments in life, and Surprises, and Michigan's loss to UCLA is One if not entirely the Other. 

Out in Longmont, Colorado, our "mom" osprey has been waiting patiently but so far in vain for her longtime mate to arrive from winter migration to start mating season by the waters at their nest

at Boulder County Fairgrounds is Both. Head tucked under wing, she's sleeping single in a double bed as I write this morning. Humans who care cleared off their old nest early last month, hopefully to clean away any poisons in the nest and avoid a repeat of last year's tragedies of nature, so there's a lot of rebuilding to do before eggs can be laid. If not "dad" then some new suitor will need to show up with a fish to begin her seduction and ignite her passions.

UPDATE!! Mid-morning arrival of ?someone?

Don't know about you, with thoughts of spring training for fall 2021, I've given up on hopes for Michigan's return to CFB greatness, and hoping the Florida Gators will do well, certainly better than that gator is doing; we play some tigers but no eagles. 

Early in the week, "coventrate" was the day's offering on A.Word.A.Day, from coventrieren, a verb, "to devastate, such as by heavy bombing", and I've been there, to Coventry, the word's origin, to Coventry Cathedral including Sunday worship. Not classic Anglicanism that Sunday morning, it was a contemporary liturgy that was trendy at the Time, spring 1995? These things come and go and one hopes the Lord is as pleased with us as we are with ourselves on our ongoing cutting edge of culture if not of taste. 

After Palm Sunday, coventrate seems as apt a word as any for devastating our God, "crucify him, Crucify Him", also for peering into my pensieve to stir memories for contrast between absolutes such as we have in America these days. More than a quarter century later, of all the places we visited on that memorable England trip of a lifetime, charming cities and magnificent cathedrals, London to Salisbury to York, Coventry is still the most stark to me, signing sharply that 

the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not (John 1:5).

As between Genesis 3 and C S Lewis' Narnia storyThe Magician's Nephew, evil may be created deliberately or brought in inadvertently, but in the strife of truth with falsehood, victory over evil is never final and done. Moreover and counter to what we vowed at the Time, Remember the Alamo, Remember the MAINE, Remember Pearl Harbor, Remember Vietnam, Remember MyLai, Remember 9/11, we neither remember nor learn a lesson. Blind to self and reason, Evil within us will always be certain that it is right, and the darkness will never comprehend the Light. 

Which at the heart of it can make everything, every effort to counter evil, seem useless. I mean, Epiphany 2021, and what's the point anymore? The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide.

To my disappointment, last Saturday's Sip signed off permanently, but with more noble than my own reasons for stepping back. I'm just tired of annoying people to no end or aim. Charles, Sip's author, says he now turns to plans for a novel. Unless he takes as long as I expect him to take to finish and get published, I might love to live long enough to read it. If so, I'll be counting on his same brilliant writing. In the meantime, I'll sorely miss his caustic, vivid observations of life from his view as a disassociated priest in the Church, one who worked his way into its center only, apparently, to be pushed or escape to its fringe and out. He can seem quite bitter, however, with life as with beer and chocolate, Bitter can be refreshing. To recount, record and let others taste it is truer to reality than only hearing from those who wear rose-colored glasses through life. Over its years, I enjoyed LaFond's Sip immensely, negative and positive alike. 

Late and mid-life explorations of one's own Faith can involve evolution that is startling to others, some of it just as well to keep to oneself.

This wasn't the end, but I have places to go and things to do: if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us ...

T+

There's at least one misplaced comma in here, but I don't have time now to go back and find and correct.

Breakfast deer sausage on a hotdog bun -> postprandial hypotension BP 79/42 forces a lie-down. Pulse 71 though, so I'm still in here!

Hobby of the moment: watching Israeli politics.