Friends and Firelight

Last summer we (well, Stu) built a small fire pit in our yard.  We had visions of friends gathered around the campfire, sharing food, laughter, and conversation.  I'm happy to report that the fire pit has worked out exactly as we hoped.  Yesterday evening we hosted some dear friends for dinner prepared under the stars: fresh wild salmon cooked over the flames on cedar stakes, accompanied by potatoes and apple crisp cooked in two Dutch ovens over charcoal.  I swear that food cooked outside tastes better than food cooked indoors. Plus nothing beats seeing friends' smiling faces lit by firelight.  Everything about the evening was a most welcome antidote from the head-exploding aggravation of the ongoing oil "spill" in the Gulf and continuing crapification of American politics. Sometimes it's grand to just focus on the blessings near to hand.

On a different subject, here is a quiz for my friends with an interest in theology:
Question: What did Jesus have to say about homosexuality.
Answer:




Today's front yard critter count:
Deer: 2
Raccoons: 5 (Crabby Mama and her young adult children are healthy, happy, and still hanging out together.  They stop by occasionally in hopes of a snack.  They occasionally get one.)
Chipmunks: 2 (living in the fenced vegetable garden)
Squirrels: many (still loud)
Rabbits: 1
Stellar's Jays: 2 (probably with a youngster stashed in a nest nearby)

Illumination and Homer Simpson

Sometimes juxtaposition can beget illumination.

On Friday I learned that the manatees may need to be rescued from spreading oil in the Gulf of Mexico.  As you probably know, manatees are large, goofily lovely aquatic mammals known for their friendly nature, their big flippers, and their frequently losing battles with power boat propellers.  Already endangered, unseasonably cold weather in the Gulf last winter decimated an additional ten percent of their population. Biologists have no idea whether they will be able to successfully relocate the manatees before they're harmed by spreading oil and it goes without saying that BP has no contingency plan to address this eventuality.

On Friday I had also just about completed Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's excellent book, "Half the Sky" about the worldwide scourge of female sex trafficking, honor killings, genital mutilation, maternal mortality, and mass rape.  The glaring truth is that across a substantial portion of the globe the profound ongoing suffering of millions of women and girls matters not one whit.

To say my heart was heavy would have been an understatement.

Then on Friday after work I went to dinner with two women friends.  We ate, and drank, and talked, and laughed. Afterward we walked out of the restaurant into a balmy, golden Pacific Northwest evening, free as birds, happy as larks, with the scent of summer in the air.

This juxtaposition damn near killed me.  Glory here, sorrow there.  Delight here, anguish there.  Lusciousness here, barrenness there. How to hold both in my heart?  How to simultaneously love the good and face the bad?  "Simple" came the answer, an answer both old and new, "it's simple."  "The riches you've been given, the riches of education, safety, freedom, work, food, water, aren't yours to keep.  They are yours to give away."

Doh!  Homer Simpson head slap!

As my hero, Bono, sang almost twenty years ago:

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other

One...life

One

Today's front yard critter count:
Deer:1
Raccoons: 0
Chipmunks: 1
Squirrels: 1
Manatees: 0 (but they can come live with us - we have a spare bedroom)