amulet
In my dreams. Which come and go, daydreams and night dreams. Forty-some years ago, about the Time of my last Navy tour in WashingtonDC, there was a hillbilly song (in cultural right-speak upgraded to "Country & Western"), "I'm having day dreams about night things, in the middle of the afternoon," that used to whine into the radio of my Olds Cutlass Supreme hardtop coupe, Ronnie Milsap singing, that caught my ear. The guy's hands were hired out, but his mind was his own. That was before the internet when your mind is no longer your own, maybe an omen of what was to come, employees using office computers for personal correspondence, so much so that businesses put an App on that monitors to make sure hearts and minds, as well as fingers, are on business during business Time.
On my computer desktop I have an icon for a link to a blogpost that someone wrote around Mothers Day, entitled "write a story about her", someone jotting down a memory, a story about his mom. I haven't done it yet, in fact, I'd forgotten until noticing the icon this morning. I'll do it though, in my own Time, write a story. Mama "had my back" when I was growing up, always against the outside world, sometimes even in situations of my father's rage at me.
Stories: we have two Bible stories for Sunday, about prophets, Elijah and Elisha (scroll down), one about their beginning together, the other about their ending together. And there's a gospel connection in some ways. Elijah and Elisha did some similar things, including raising women's beloved sons from the dead, as God's prophets who, for Luke, were precursors to Luke's understanding of Jesus as God's ultimate prophet. Every writer has an agenda, and Luke has his own way of thinking and telling his story of Jesus.
What else? A friend writing about his superstitious nature, studiously avoiding doing something, or making sure always to do a certain thing, because of a superstition associated with it. BTDT. In high school I only got A's on test papers on which I'd scribbled, in the upper right hand corner of the first page, my own personal amulet: a quickly circled rotating Tornado, for Bay Hi Tornadoes, and it developed to where I sanctified it by drawing a cross in it to make sure of the A - - until a teacher called me up front, asked me what it meant, I feigned surprise and innocence, and she told me not to do it again. But by then it was a magical charm that my GPA depended on, my mark, like bobbing my head when the Cross went by in procession, or making the sign of the Cross at the Absolution, so I simplified it into just an innocuous squiggle of a Tornado to keep my grades up.
My father carried a lucky $3 gold piece all his life, until I came of age and he gave it to me. When Walt came of age, our father gave him one also, I think a $2 gold piece. I carried mine in my wallet for years until ...
At graduation, years ago when I was school chaplain, I used to give our eighth graders a brass or silver prayer pocket coin to carry with them. These things are easy to lose and I've wondered whether anyone still has theirs. I still have a few that I didn't give out, including a gold one, around here somewhere that, if I come across it, I'll see if my friend wants it.
Sometimes these little things are the difference in life and death.
The airline pilot who always carries his lucky rabbits foot because it's what keeps the plane in the air.
Just before leaping from the plane to parachute behind enemy lines, Dutch Schulz in "The Longest Day" clutches the rosary his mother sent him.
What's real? What to believe?
Wishing you long years, keeps the evil eye at bay.
.
1 Kings 19:15-16,19-21
The Lord said to Elijah, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place."
So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." Then Elijah said to him, "Go back again; for what have I done to you?" He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Voce mea ad Dominum
1 I will cry aloud to God; *
I will cry aloud, and he will hear me.
2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; *
my hands were stretched out by night and did not tire;
I refused to be comforted.
11 I will remember the works of the Lord, *
and call to mind your wonders of old time.
12 I will meditate on all your acts *
and ponder your mighty deeds.
13 Your way, O God, is holy; *
who is so great a god as our God?
14 You are the God who works wonders *
and have declared your power among the peoples.
15 By your strength you have redeemed your people, *
the children of Jacob and Joseph.
16 The waters saw you, O God;
the waters saw you and trembled; *
the very depths were shaken.
17 The clouds poured out water;
the skies thundered; *
your arrows flashed to and fro;
18 The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lit up the world; *
the earth trembled and shook.
19 Your way was in the sea,
and your paths in the great waters, *
yet your footsteps were not seen.
20 You led your people like a flock *
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel." But Elisha said, "As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So they went down to Bethel.
Then Elijah said to him, "Stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan." But he said, "As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.
When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you." Elisha said, "Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit." He responded, "You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not." As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, "Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" When he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.