Fear and Faith: Sort it Out

Setting aside Middlemarch last night, I started reading Alexander Mc Call Smith’s latest book in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective series, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. Always a surprise to see what wisdom wends it way through this delightful story, a commentary on snakes bit me.

“They have their place, said the official [in a recent plea that people should refrain from doing anything about snakes unless they actually came into the house], and if there were no snakes, then there would be many more rats … That message, though, went against most people’s deepest instincts.”

Further, another paragraph applies to many of the anxiety-causing issues that confront people today, whether they live in Africa or America or on an island in the South Pacific.

            She looked up at her acacia tree. There could be a snake in the tree for all she knew; nature was full of snake-like shapes and colours—long, sinuous twigs and boughs, snake-coloured grass that moved in the wind just as a snake might move. Concealment was easy. So snakes could watch us silently, their tongues flickering in and out to pick up our scent, their tiny, pitch-black eyes bright with evil; they were there, but the best way to deal with snakes was not to deal with them—Mma Ramotswe was sure of that. If we left snakes alone, then they kept away from us. It was only when we intruded on their world that they bit us, and who could blame them for that? It was the same with life in general thought Mma Ramotswe. If we worried away at troublesome issues, we often only ended up making things worse. It was far better to let things sort themselves out.

Yes, many troublesome issues provoke our natural instinct to fear. Note that people who have lived at all times and in all places have faced threats to their safety, fears about their future and perils impossible to forestall.

No amount of vigilance and preparation can protect from every conceivable danger. Enemies real and imagined exist everywhere; many have “pitch-black eyes bright with evil.” 

I see a lot of issue-driven preparation for disaster, hand-wringing worry and social commentators who feed on the palpable anxiety of the populace. The sky is falling.

Buy guns and ammo? Stockpile food? Build a compound? Go Green!

Could it be that the convergence of economic, political, climate and now pandemic flu concerns have their place in human affairs even as snakes have their place in nature?

The Sound of Music

Exactly how life should be lived. Bursting into song and dance every once in a while makes for great theatrics, contagious smiles and increased heart rates. 

Watch this video for cause and the effect music has on the faces of onlookers.  http://www.flixxy.com/antwerp-central-station-sound-of-music.htm

Memories Have Holes

Going through pictures last weekend with my husband, my son and daughter-in-law, I came across this one with a hole.

“Look at this. My dad is cut out of the picture,” I said.

But what struck me before I said anything: I didn’t know I had a picture of the doll—the doll they buried with my sister. She died seventeen days after her seventh birthday, four days after this picture was taken.

I wrote about that nebulous memory in one of my Door essays, “The Duck and the Doll,” an inchoate creative writing assignment for a class at DTS. Stunned to see a picture of Renée holding the doll she had gotten for Christmas—the day this picture was taken—the glossy black and white image refreshed my shame. I had asked for her doll when she died because my gift was a cradle without a doll.

But back to the picture with a hole.

A wistful feeling swept over me that my dad was missing. He died, too, not quite three months later. It would have been the only picture I have of the four of us together before they died: my mom, my dad, Renée and me. Unc, on the far right next to me, died in 1992. The two boys are cousins, Joe and Mike. Auntie, my mother’s younger sister, took the picture.

My mother, who died in 1998, said she hated pictures. Few of her pictures have ended up in my possession—these timeless-ageless mementos that root me to a reality lived through while their substance remains as murky and fluid as a river.

My daughter-in-law held the picture in her hand to examine it. “My mom cut my dad out of pictures after their divorce.”

We all agreed that my mom had to have cut my dad out of the picture. 

“Who knows why?” I added. “Maybe Mom blamed him for Renée's death.”

Still the picture itself bore evidence to the memory that caused me to swallow hard and fight the tears. Keep sorting, I told myself. Forget about the doll. Forget about the duck. Forget about the dad.

The next morning, on our way home, my husband and I pulled into a Sonic in Amarillo. The crate full of pictures I had carted on this trip sat behind my seat; I kept thinking about one picture with a hole.

“I cut the picture.”

My husband said, “What are you talking about?”

“I remember a gold-plated locket that I wore. I don’t remember who gave it to me or when, but it’s coming back to me. I cut the picture of my dad’s face out and put it in that locket.” The memory came to me as if I had floated through fog, an unsubstantial spirit seeking rest.

“That makes sense,” he said.

Yes, the sharp angles of the cuts in the picture—it looks like I used a knife instead of scissors—imprecise cuts. The extracted piece would have revealed a tiny image of my handsome dad, a piece of my story to wedge in a cheap locket.

On the back of the picture with the missing daddy, my mother wrote, “Gone so soon!”

And I think, "Gone for so long."

Tapestry Blog

I posted on bible.org's Tapestry blog my first and fumbling effort, frantic because posting didn't work exactly as this one does. But by golly, I think I've got it. 

Click on over and have a read. Lots going on over there. 

http://blog.bible.org/tapestry/

I Dreamed a Dream

Saw portions of this clip from "Britain Has Talent" on ABC News tonight and it made me cry.

Perfect song choice. Right, Simon?

Keep dreaming.

http://en.sevenload.com/videos/V28irjR-Susan-Boyle-Britain-Has-Talent-2009 

Raised to Walk in Newness of Life

Today, like their father before them, my son's two youngest children were baptized on Easter Sunday. Mom and sisters, Gran and Poppy, Aunt Rose and her friend Troy witnessed the rite, symbolic of Christ's own burial and resurrection. Oh, glorious morning. 

"He is not here; He has risen just as He said" (Matthew 28:6).

Audra's Birthday

Today we celebrated my daughter-in-law's birthday. 

James shot the video and incorporating still photos I took as well, I made my second ever movie. 

Instead of the T-shirt that says, "Careful or you'll end up in my novel," I need to get one that says "Careful or I'll put you in my movie."