Tuesday, January 25, 2022                                        (today’s lectionary)
Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle
Rejoicing in the moments we have
Since I could see nothing because of the brightness of that light, I was led by hand by my companions and entered Damascus.
Jasper spent the day with us. At the end of their school day Andi and Miles came and joined us for an hour before heading home. Sometimes, because of traffic, their 15 minute drive home takes twice as long. Could be worse, I guess.
We ate warm gingerbread cookies that Jasper and Margaret made, with cold milk. We sat in front of our first fire this winter, in a fireplace that works great as long as the vent is open. I looked up inside the chimney with my phone’s front lens – that lens is good for a lot more than just selfies!
One day last winter my brain ceased to function and I failed to open that vent. All three of our smoke alarms went crazy, we were choking on the smoke, we opened every window, we couldn’t get the Duraflame log out of the house, and we vowed never to use the fireplace again. Never again! But I broke that vow today, and everything was fine. It was amazing how well our open vent worked yesterday.
Jasper cut tofu for our lunch, tofu that we bought at a Japanese grocery, put in the freezer, then thawed and squeezed as dry as we could. “Do you drink that tofu juice?” I asked. “No!” Margaret said. “Are you crazy?” I thought I might make a craft cocktail. But not this time.
Jasper sawed away with his big plastic knife and cut the tofu into perfect pieces for the wok. Margaret calls the tofu “little sponges.” We fried up some pork loin pieces in some oil and soy sauce, then fried the tofu in the pork juice and added vegetables. A little rice, and there we were in Shanghai.
The virtual traveling bug hits me hard almost every night. On the computer I can travel with Google Maps, Google Earth, and Flightradar24, which tracks airplane flights all over the world in real time. When I hear a plane over our apartment heading for Austin International, I can check to see where it was coming from. Then I can head there myself, and see the sights. Like Paris, for example: using a kindle book called City Walks: Paris I can see the streets it guides me up and down, and even go inside some of the churches and museums.
In our spare time we have been putting together a puzzle made up entirely of hotel stickers, stickers which no longer exist, I guess. In the past those beautiful stickers blanketed the luggage and trunks of world travelers. Putting the pieces together, my imagination runs around, jumps up and down, and settles occasionally into a simple chair, so I can catch my breath.
Like Jasper, all day, running, jumping, laughing, hugging my leg, making cookies with Margaret, then stopping just a moment so he can catch his breath. It rained all day, it was dreary and cold, but that just did not seem to matter to our two year old. He is lately being toilet trained, and my friend Clarence’s poem yesterday made me happy:
Amazing
He likes me to talk about worms
and show him pictures on my phone
as he does his bathroom business.
He is the essence of what is good in this world.
I am amazed that my heart can’t begin to hold
all the love I have for him, and how he delights me,
and how I so enjoy being with him.
But what amazes me more,
is that he feels the same toward me.
Outside the Salvation Army store, where everything on Monday is 50% off for old folks, a relatively young woman watched Jasper stomp his way through some pretty deep puddles. He was proud of himself. She said watching him made her day. I am sure she would like to have joined him. Me too. But I was the responsible adult, right?
Our friend Janice (lately from Jerusalem) sent us a newsletter from her new home, living with several other women in Budapest. She seems a world away, but she’s not so far as that, and in all these bits and pieces of our lives, I feel connection with others far more than separation, even when we are separated by thousands of miles. This morning I’ll talk with my friend Chris, who lives near the Himalayas in Dehradun, India. With Google Earth I flew there from the campsite where another friend George is spending a week in Terlingua on the Mexico-Texas border.
Aunt Vera’s husband Don passed away a few weeks ago, and his memorial service was Saturday. I couldn’t go, but Mary Kay was there and visited with our four cousins. As kids, we saw each other often. I am so thankful for those days of dinners and Sunday football games on TV and playing outside together.
As I drew near Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground.
I don’t exactly know what all this has to do with today’s celebration of Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Except that in exercising my mind all these other ways, I can better imagine that I’m on the desert track, riding the camel, knocked off by a gust of wind, and then in the blinding sandstorm hear the voice from heaven, as did Saul. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
What happens next?
(Painting by Nicolas Bernard Lepicie, 1767)
(Acts 22, Acts 9, Psalm 117, John 15, Mark 16)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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