Temperatures have been in the 100's in many parts of the country. The heat can be destructive, annoying, and also creative. Here are our reflections . . .
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I noticed on Facebook my friend Vicky’s beautiful bloom-bordered garden interspersed with benches, loungers, and cushions. It was an invitation to be regaled by the Creator who splashed vibrant colors upon gifts of nature, to be enjoyed and inspired. She lives up North. I, on the other hand, in the heart of Texas (Heat of Texas?) go out to my deck every morning and every evening to hand- sprinkle my plants struggling to survive; and if they triumph, they will bloom. Others look like fried bacon.
Attuned to the pervasive heat, I couldn’t help it. After my morning hour of spiritual reading, being inspired by a mini-memoir of
Trebbe Johnson’s five days alone in the Arctic Wilderness
,
and her metaphoric list of needed equipment for the journey home, I was also feeling the chill of Arctic ice that seemed to cool my soul. One of the items Trebbe recommended is “a sacred Warning System app for your smart phone.” This app “sounds an alarm at the very instant you’re about to forget the one thing you were told you absolutely must not forget upon arriving back in your own land.” It “beeps insistently when you’re on the verge of ignoring the advice you must follow.”
Johnson’s metaphor was still in the front of my mind when I saw
the video from my hometown, Corpus Christi
. Although it was a familiar sight, it sounded an alarm: “Notice!” -the sun a-rising, burning through the lambent fog to reveal creation anew this day. The sun – shall we say ‘fire’ – being
one of the four elements
, is the creator of clarity in this scene. It might be difficult today, being annoyed and inconvenienced by the heat, but this would be a good time to be aware of the creative energy of fire, not only to clear and cleanse, but also to love. Thank you,
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
for your wisdom: “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
--Jan
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Answers varied greatly. Some said yes, some said no. One quoted Civil War general Phillip Sheridan who, after experiencing a Texas summer, said that if he owned both Texas and Hell, he would live in Hell and rent out Texas. (The person offering the quote commented, “Come on, it's not
that
bad!”).
My response drew from my experience of seven Maine winters: “The Mainers have a saying, ‘If you can’t stand the wintahs, you don’t deserve the summahs.’ I finally had to tell my congregation I couldn’t stand the winters. It wasn’t so much the severity of the winter weather (although I do remember the snow in the front yard reaching 4 feet deep!), but how long it lasted. When it reached the point that I came to
expect
there would still be snow on the ground for Easter, that was too much.”
Interestingly, another respondent, who had lived in Minnesota, gave a similar response: “I was good with brutal cold until it stuck around for March and even April. It was snow at Easter that got me.”
There is something just wrong about snow on the ground at Easter! Just as it is flat-out wrong for Thanksgiving temperatures to require air-conditioning (not unknown in South Texas). I can feel it in my gut: this is not right!
Which leads me to ponder: How many of our gut reactions about what is right and what is wrong are really about little more than what is
familiar
?
May we never fall prey to the fallacy of equating the customary with the good, the unfamiliar with evil.
-- Bill
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Our hearts go out to all, but especially to friends and family who are threatened by the destructive fires particularly in Oregon and California. Know that we remember you in our prayers.
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Recent Issues
Issue 177 - Mr. Rogers
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Copyright (c) 2018 Soul Windows Ministries
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Sincerely,
Bill Howden and Jan Davis
Soul Windows Ministries
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