Out of the Frying Pan

It's 3.11 pm on Friday afternoon

...and I wonder whether the A/C repairman will keep our appointment.

If I need a blood transfusion this weekend

...check with the Mosquito and Miller Coalition here in Northern Colorado. I'm pretty sure the mosquitoes will be able to help: less sure that the moths will encourage such a noble endeavor.

Although a remnant remains, mostly the back garden is...


a pretty rough neighborhood.

The remains of many days

This year's ashes come from last year's palms. Heartbreaking, really, to see the physical sign of regrets, broken promises, sin.

For a while, I had taken to carrying around a little book in which I had marked down some grave regrets in my life. I guess I was hoping to show a sign of my sorrow and determination to change. But recently I have realized that the only reconciliation on which I should depend is with God and that, beyond God's, the only forgiveness I can hope reasonably to obtain is my own.

Some things can never be fixed

Several months ago I blogged about how some things can never be changed, or not. Lately my thoughts have wandered from what can or cannot be changed to a related topic: what can or cannot be fixed.

I think I have come not only to believe but to accept that, in ties of friendship and kinship, it is possible and sometimes even necessary for things to be broken beyond repair. It has happened to me and sometimes I have made it happen. It will happen to every relationship at my death and to some relationships, before then.

Sometimes our connections with each other break down beyond what can be mended. This fact never features in the the modern fairy tales that make a fetish of reconciliation, such as the reunions of reality TV. But it features in life. Not, friends, in my marriage, but certainly in my life.

Leon Drews used to play brilliant riffs on Sunday mornings for Come, Ye Disconsolate. That hymn remains a favorite of mine because, in proclaiming that "earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure", it acknowledges that earth has plenty of sorrows that will never on earth be cured.

Thinking about a little less Three Stooges, a little more Greta Garbo

In the old movies, the difference between the Three Stooges and Greta Garbo isn't just comedy and drama (except for Garbo's last two films); it's a difference between living in a raucous crowd and living more quietly, if not hermetically.

Ever been in a grocery store or on a crowded sidewalk when three or four or more ring tones -- everything from Pachelbel to the RZA -- go off? People start jumping around, fumbling with their clothes or backpacks or bags and pretty soon even more people are walking down the sidewalk, alone but talking out loud. It's how we live.

Melissa at A Contemplative Joy nails it: there IS no alone time. And she points out an essay by William Deresiewicz, The End of Solitude, in which he takes on our cultures of celebrity and connectivity. About our obsession with numbers of blog readers and friends on Facebook, he writes, "What does friendship mean when you have 532 'friends'?"

Fifty years ago in December

Half a century ago, by about this time in December we were little bundles of excitement in the back seat as our parents plotted a course through the best-lit neighborhoods. The bay window in our kitchen looks out on the street and tonight a few cars motored slowly past as I worked. It make me wonder whether people still drive around to look at Christmas lights. Probably not.

In 1958, color television for most people was still years away. Brownie cameras shot black and white and even glossy magazines often carried only a few color photos. Far from the bright lights of a big city, a few colored lights strung along eaves made quite an impact. Now, one thinks, not so much.

In transit

On a quick car trip from London to Glasgow, we've made stops to introduce Mr T to the eloquent Coventry Cathedral and the magnificently tumbled down Fountains Abbey. Time "bears all its sons away" and all the stones, too, but the latter far more slowly.

Encouraging thought

Last night as photos of the trip to Kew uploaded, an unbidden thought: "These aren't just awful."

That's how it usually is

Ever noticed that when someone says, "I won't argue with you," they already have?