Memories
Pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories
Sweetened through the ages just like wine
Quiet thoughts come floating down and settle softly to the ground
Like golden autumn leaves around my feet
I touch them and they burst apart with sweet memories
Lyrics by the Lettermen
(the sun cutting through the clouds / Julie Cook / 2020)
Do you remember when we use to worry about things like tornados, hurricanes, blizzards,
droughts…what about things like The Wall, illegal aliens, the fab four, Madame Speaker,
‘pencilneck’, impeachments, our President, the left, the right, the wrong…
What about the pollen?
The highest ever, in all of recorded history took place this week—
Or what about climate change…oh wait, didn’t it cause the pandemic or was that Trump??
But who has time to worry about sneezing and itchy eyes, the climate, global warming,
ad infinitum, when we can’t even find toilet paper?
Ahhh, those were the good old days…
So isn’t it simply amazing how a pandemic just seems to glibly push all that
other stuff aside?
There was a doctor from Emory University, who was interviewed by the news this morning,
who quipped that we might as well just wipe the month of April off the books cause we
ain’t budging from this life on lockdown for at least 4 to 6 more weeks.
And then to put the icing on the cake, I actually read that Easter was being canceled.
Yep, canceling Easter.
Hummmm…
You mean canceling local egg hunts, Sunday services with fancy new dresses and frilly
Spring hats, the wee hour sunrise services…canceling luncheons and afternoon gatherings…
canceling that Easter right?!
Because we know that nothing…not politicians, principalities, dominions, rulers, kings,
pandemics—-not even death can ever stop Easter…
But of course, we already knew that, didn’t we…??
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
John 11:25
The life of a Christian is to be different than the life of the unbeliever.
Like all human beings, Christians need certain things of this world to live,
but Jesus calls us to be primarily occupied with living for the kingdom.
If we do this, He promises that the things we need for life on this earth
will be given as well.
Ralph Martin
from Fulfillment of All Desire
(Cades Cove, wild turkeys /Julie Cook/ 2015)
I may have mentioned this before but my husband is an avid outdoorsman.
He’s been this way ever since he was a young boy.
Such is the predisposition of anyone having grown up in a more rural
area of the state.
And despite my having been born to a city a dwelling family, I too love the outdoors.
Now my husband has hunted and fished his whole life—
and I must say that one of the more colorful seasons of hunting is that of turkey hunting.
The other morning we were outside on the back deck, grabbing our first cup of coffee
for the day, when I heard that unmistakeable wobbling echoing from deep within the woods…
Gobblegobblegobble…
If you’ve never heard a real turkey gobbling–do a quick youtube search in order to hear
that worbbly gobbling because it really is quite humorously unique.
Being the ever-ready hunter, my husband had his turkey call mouthpiece within arms reach.
With a glint in his eye and turkey call ready to pop in his mouth, he tells
me to “listen and watch”…
My husband then proceeded to make that lovely musical sound for any and
all male turkeys…that chirping sound of a female hen looking for amore.
Sure enough—there was an echoing return, a gobbling that was louder—
and I could tell the sound was closing in.
My husband “putted” again (that’s what you call a female’s response).
The responding male, or tom turkey, was now louder and much closer.
Turkeys crack me up.
They aren’t the smartest birds in the wild.
The male gobbler, or tom, will literally come in running, puffed up, tail unfurled,
strutting his stuff, in an attempt to look as attractive as possible
for his “lady”, when he hears the call.
(a tom turkey’s tail / Julie Cook / 2014)
Sadly however during hunting season, that ‘lady’ is often a hunter looking
to put a turkey dinner on the table.
And so it is with this thought of calling in turkeys that my thoughts have turned toward
Washington D.C as our capital seems to be rife with its fair share of turkeys…
both toms and hens.
A rafter of turkeys—with a rafter being what we call a flock of turkeys.
Washington is plumb full.
It’s kind of how I feel when I see a certain youthful and prideful politician wag her finger at
the camera all the while extolling the issues as to why the opposition dislikes her.
Despite being a female, this particular politician puffs up for the camera much
like a tom turkey, with a most youthful and prideful zeal, much like that of
the tom turkey—
all the while acting more like a jake…a jake being a young male turkey who
lacks that old tom wizened wisdom.
She’s too young and too inexperienced to understand what makes wisdom what it is…
She falls prey to what she has perceived as real but in actuality is false.
Something that an old and wiser turkey would know to be false.
The older birds are not lured in as readily to an initial call as
are those younger more eogtistical birds.
Falsehoods such as a farce of some far fetched expensive new Green Deal—
or that of polarizing Socialism.
She has temper tantrums, screaming as loud as possible, popping her head back and forth
in an effort to silence what is Truth…a display indicative of a younger,
more inexperienced turkey.
The Henny Penny, the sky is falling lunacy that now besieges us…
The world will end in 12 years.
The Republicans amended the constitution to end FDR’s run.
The methane resulting from a cow’s excessive flatulence will kill us.
On and on she rants…puffing up ever grander and larger while feeling her oats
in hopes of luring in the unexpected.
But what of the other turkeys…what of those who now demand that convicted felons
should be allowed to vote–when a key component to breaking the law is to lose that
same right to vote…
a repercussion, a consequence, of not following the rules…
Yet turkeys find repercussions passe…
Just like allowing illegal aliens the right to vote in a country of which they are not citizens..
May the dead now recast their votes.
Or what of all the chatter over reparations?
What of those turkeys…turkeys who puff up all feathery for those unseen voters promising that
slave owners and businesses that profited from such, albeit it now 200 years past, must
repay those of some sort of slave heritage…
How might that ever work???
Turkey’s don’t care care how things work… not as long as they look puffy and pretty
for those luring calls
And what all turkeys must remember…someone is always patiently waiting
in the wings, waiting on having a naive turkey over for dinner.
(a poor tom turkey who was looking for love in all the wrong places / Julie Cook / 2014)
Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth;
for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him, actions are weighed.
1 Samuel l2:3
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