the tale of the drunk mockingbird….

One day Bessie Braddock, a rather plump Labor MP,
approached Winston Churchill in which she said
‘Sir! You are drunk’, to which Mr. Churchill replied
‘I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.’
Winston S. Churchill

(our resident mockingbird / Julie Cook / 2015)

Remember how I shared the tale of woe concerning our shower?
The twenty year slow leak that could only be rectified by tearing out the old…
all the way to the studs…with dust upon debris of rot and leak….
Only to slowly, and just ever so, add back layer upon layer…
eventually putting things back better than before???

Well we’re still in the middle of the layering process—
water mesh, moisture barriers, shower pans, sealant, cements…
on and on goes the mess.

Tile fellow is a very nice man and very much a Brooklyn boy who lives and breathes
for his beloved Yankees…. who have been winning their series in the playoffs.
Much to my favor as Happy Yankees beget Happy Yankee fans who beget
Happy Yankee tile guy, who beget happy tile customers…

But this has been a very messy and very dirty task.
Had I known what all was entailed, I would have just said re-do the entire bathroom
while you’re at it because if I live through this, I won’t be retiling anything
again in my lifetime.

After Tile man leaves each evening, I’m rolling up drop cloths,
vacuuming up a ton of dust, gingerly removing old insulation, wiping down cabinets,
mopping floors, and cleaning from top to bottom the residual mess of the day’s work.

Tile man wanted to leave his shop vac sitting in the middle of my very dusty bedroom at night as its just too heavy to haul back and forth from the garage along with the air compressor for the nail gun.
“You know we sleep in there right?”

I had to remind him that I prefer not having heavy equipment out lest I run into in the middle of the night.
He also didn’t understand why I insist on rolling up the very dirty and very dusty drop cloths every night only to roll them back out early each morning….
I don’t know, something about living without any more excessive dust and dirt then absolutely necessary seemed to make sense to me, but who am I to say.

So you should know we have a door in our bedroom that leads to the back deck,
the covered back deck.
We never use that door but it was in the plans when we built the house 20 years
ago so we have a door we don’t use….

Tile guy tells me that since he’s a New Yorker and Italian to boot, the heat is brutal
on him so every available window is open, the AC is running, fans are blowing
90 to nothing as dust is delightfully blanketing my entire house—
think Pompeii indoors.
And the high this week have only been in the mid 70’s….go figure.

He told me that he was going to open that door in the bedroom for more air.
Obviously windows are not enough.

However he was going to need to make a quick run to get more caulking.
Tile man was obviously born in a barn because all doors remain open whether or not
he is coming or going—
as in he will not, for love nor money, shut a door behind him.

Think now of every fly in the county and every bee and wasp for miles seeing
these open doors and I might as well have a sign out,
“all bugs please come inside!”

So as Tile man ran to the store for more caulk, I went to shut the back door.
When I headed into the bedroom to shut that door imagine my horror as I spied
our resident full grown Mockingbird flying around and around in a panic in my bedroom.

Let that sink in a minute…

a full grown bird in a tizzy flying around and around like
a nutjob in my bedroom—
did I mention the antique lamps that were my grandmother’s???

Let me back up a tad.

During the past week or so I have noticed how our Mockingbird has been singing
his pretty little head off as if it were a new Spring…
as in the birds and bees being oh so happy that it’s “that” time of year again…
as in it’s time to sing and look pretty for the ladies.

But wait…the calendar says mid October…as in cool nights and temperate days.
Not the time for making, let alone thinking about, woo…

This nutty bird has been sitting outside the closet window staring in at
Percy my cat, singing to my poor cat his song of love, for the past week.
Plus I’ve noticed a copious amount of bird poop out on the front porch…
As in the bird is off his rocker, making a mess and creating all sorts of havoc.

And then it dawns on me…

This time of year berries, Pokeberries to be exact, are in plentiful supply.

These things are similar to elderberries but poisonous to human consumption.
However they have been used by Native Americans and others for centuries to make a
deep lasting purple / magenta dye.

The berries just sit on the vine and, well, ferment.
In other words… free drinks on the house for all woodland creatures of
both field and air…

Meaning, I’ve now got a very drunk Mockingbird…
who by the way, is acting very much like a typical drunk,
now trying to fly drunk in a place he has sense enough to know is not home…

This is why you don’t drink and fly.

Ok, back to the present and this bird in my bedroom.

The bird continues circling and bamming into the ceiling,
leaving grey feathers everywhere along with seeds and purple poop.

I collect myself enough to quickly shut the bedroom door—
otherwise I’d never catch the bird if he made it to the rest of the house.

And now he heads to the bathroom.

REALLY?
THE BATHROOM????

Of all places????….
Tile guy is bad enough in there and now I have a drunk bird pooping purple crap all
over the place.

It was a miracle he missed bombing the lamp shades and my bed!!!!
As that purple mess isn’t washing out of anything.

The bird flies into the shower, into the mirror, into the window,
into the ceiling and back into the bedroom…
grey feathers are now stuck or floating all over the place.

All the while I”m chasing this drunk bird with both arms outstretched
trying to either catch it or shoo it out….whichever works….

Finally, thankfully, he finds the door….and out he goes as I quickly slam
the door in his wake.

And if you’re wondering where the cats were during all of this excitement—they
shelter in place in the guest bedroom, cowering in the closet when workmen are in
the house as they have apoplexy when visitors show up.

So not only was I cleaning dust and sheet rock residue, I was now cleaning purple poop
from the the windows, the door trim, the floor, a pillow case, the drop cloths…

When Tile man finally returns I, in no uncertain terms, tell him that there will be
no more open doors in the bedroom as I pleadingly ask how much longer does he
anticipate this job is going to take…

“Tile,” he tells me, “is messy hard work, probably another week or so… that is
if I don’t rush him…”tile can’t be rushed”….

Sigh—

So what’s the moral of this little tale you ask?
Well there really isn’t one…
just know that you should always be weary of melodious singing birds in the fall
who have been hitting the sauce, or in this case the pokeberry juice, one too many.
And that pokeberry juice will stain anything it touches…

Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:21

bitterness

“The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable,
Is that which rages in the place of dearest love.”
Euripides

“Up from behind a sand dune close beside her rose the form of her enemy Bitterness.
He did not come any nearer, having learned a little more prudence,
and was not going to make her call for the Shepherd if he could avoid it,
but simply stood and looked at her and laughed and laughed again,
the bitterest sound that Much-Afraid had heard in all her life.”
Hannah Hurnard, Hinds’ Feet on High Places

(image of wormwood)

Anyone who spends any amount of time in a car alone… commuting or traveling…
knows that such time is spent basically as a virtual prisoner of one’s car…
yet it is time spent providing one with ample time for thought and reflection.
That is if the radio isn’t blaring or you’re not jabbering on the phone.

Finding myself commuting to and from Dad’s these days….
Just one way I am alone in the car from anywhere from a little over an hour to upwards
to 4 hours and beyond given the happenstance of life on Atlanta’s interstates….
One little wreck or stall or the never ending construction projects…
and I can find myself with plenty of “alone” time in which to ponder, reflect or fret…

The other evening I found myself quickly playing catch up with some of
my favorite blogs.
One of my brother’s in Christ and his wife are currently in Israel.

This blogging friend has been dutifully posting pictures of his trip along with a bit
of historical commentary as time has allowed.
I’ve enjoyed playing virtual tourist as have others who read his blog.

Yet sadly there have been a few commentators who have been very negative and even critical
of my fiend’s trip….likening such a trip to Israel, Jerusalem in particular,
as a type of Disneyland experience.

Now I understand that any sort of historic tourist draw is going to have its fair share
of those hawking to make a fast buck made on the backs of unsuspecting tourists.
Think posing with Roman clad gladiators outside of Rome’s Colosseum…paying
upwards of 20 to 40 euros for a shot and you get the idea of money being made
at historical sites.

I experienced a very similar sordid encounter at another overtly tourist site
on a trip once to Pompeii.
Pompeii being the ancient Italian city, just outside of Naples, that was destroyed in the year
79 AD by a catastrophic eruption from the volcano Mt Vesuvius.
The city is frozen in time and is a sad and eerie testament to what it means living in the
shadow of a volcano…

Pompeii is an ongoing archaeological site as well as a protected and perseved historical site.
Buildings have been identified as various homes, governmental offices, stores….
as well as the identification of even a local brothel.
Pompeii was a port town and well, one has always heard about sailors on leave…

The brothel was readily identified because of the stone carved man’s genitalia placed above
the threshold of this particular building.
It seems that the locals now capitalizing on the universal interest in sex and so
replicas of this particular “carving” are for sale all over the area outside the city gates.
Think Disney and Mickey’s ear and Pompeii has, well, male body parts for sale.

So I get the whole Disney mentality of tourism…
But there was more to this viewer’s comments than that of causal observation…
as his comments actually turned bitterly hateful.

For you see, this particular blog visitor is an avowed nonbeliever.
He is not a stranger to my friend’s blog, my blog, nor others who profess to
be believing Christians.
It would probably be more accurate to note that this fellow is a former believer now
turned ardent atheist.

I don’t know much about him but that he enjoys taunting Christians.

His taunts on my friend’s site, concerning this trip to the Holy Land, actually
began to border on almost sick…even as he alluded off color to my friend’s wife.

So naturally when I found myself in my car, alone, I began to recall those vicious words,
as well as the words of those who did not care for this
“raining on the trip parade” as it were.
The volley of insults began bouncing back and forth…

What I do know is this man lost his father several years ago—
to cancer is my understanding.
That he was a believer and also what I understand was actually a minister.

I realize that by watching those we love who suffer,
grievously suffering in anguishing pain,
can certainly test and try the faith of the most ardent among us.
And I must confess that I’ve been known to raise my fist to God during the various trails
throughout the course of my own life… so I do not begrudge anyone those emotions
of sorrow and frustration associated with heartbreak and agony.

Yet as I ruminated over those rather wicked words…reflecting even on the tone
to which they were delivered…
only one word kept coming to mind…
bitterness.

Pure unadulterated bitterness.

Bitterness, according Merriam Webster, is a deep-seated ill will caused by anger,
distress or sorrow.
Chances are we have all experienced bitterness or its fist cousin resentment, at some
point during life.

Yet bitterness which is not eventually banished, takes root within one’s being…
Allowed to fester and ferment it is easily recognized.
It is highly unattractive and the outward seeping and spewing of bitterness,
which easily bubbles up to the surface,
is readily and regrettably tasted by any observer.

Bitterness creates an isolating barrier…
Repelling anyone who dares to offer an open hand.

Bitterness is not a welcomed human trait nor is it tolerated for long by others…
It becomes a never ending cycle of brokeness….
as bitterness simply begets more bitterness…

It seems to me that more often then not, non-belivers and bitterness
often walk hand in hand…
whereas the followers of Christ are grounded in what many note as
an unexplainable settled peace…

So as I continue my journey of commuting and ruminating,
I know my friend is throughly enjoying his trip, just we are…
those of us who are enjoying reading of his travels as we
enjoy being virtual tourists…

As one thing I have gleaned…there is certainly no time for bitterness when one is selflessly
sharing with ones friends…
Happy travels Wally….

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander,
along with every form of malice.
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other,
just as in Christ God forgave you.
Ephesians 4:31-32

Narcissus and the selfie obsession

“For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.”
John Steinbeck

(Narcissus by Caravaggio 1597-99 / Galleria Nazionale D’Arte Antica, Rome, Italy)

I just don’t get it.

Were we not taking pictures, those of ourselves, long before the word selfie came into being the most recent phenomenon cultural obsession?
Those good ol days of the Kodak instamatic, with its four part flash cube, clicking away at the important moments of our lives. . .

Excitedly we’d pop out the film role, being careful not to expose it to light, racing it off to the nearest camera shop as we could barely contain our excitement over our soon to be developed pictures.
Only to joyfully retrieve the prints after several days of anxious waiting, marveling at the double exposures, red eyes, and blurry images as being careful not to get sticky fingerprints on the new glossy picture prints.
Were we a bit more cautious as to what we were taking pictures of as we knew that there was a person at the camera shop who would be developing said pictures and we certainly didn’t want him or her to see us in any poor choice of situation—perhaps with the developer acting as both filter and conscience. . .Hummmmmm. . .

But I suppose yes, we have come a long way. . .I just don’t know if its been a very good journey.

And social media, I don’t much get that either. . .

This whole FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram. . .”insta” this and that obsession in this obsessive connect every dot, unabashedly sharing of everything, and sadly I mean everything, with everyone and anyone world of ours. . .
Keeping up with the Joneses has now met the 21st century way.
A virtual brag sheet of trips and activities with the sharing of our intimate and private moments. . .with not only friends and family, but everyone!

Maybe it’s the latest national, no actually global, obsession, of everyone wanting their 15 minutes of fame—with, as we again sadly see, that fame often leading to instant demise. . .

I know what you’re thinking. . .you’re thinking I’m really showing my age, my ignorance, my uber unclooness. . .
Well I prefer hoping that maybe I just might be simply on a quest for wisdom.

I’ve stated before that I’ve never joined in with the whole FaceBook phenomenon.
I don’t tweet, pin, post, chat and whatever it is that most folks are now doing on this communicative world stage of ours.
Oh I understand the whole “it’s how I stay connected with my family who live so far away” mentality. . .I get that.
I get you want to see pictures of the grandkids. . .share what the kids are up to with a traveling spouse. . .share those treasured family moments with literally the world, I get it. . .I’m just wondering if we haven’t also turned into a culture of. . . what’s the word??. . .oh yeah, creepers or maybe just plain ol voyeurists–as we fill our time by pouring over ours and our neighbor’s, those known and unknown, virtual worlds.

Moms following their kids around cyberly making certain all is on the up and up until the kids “unfriend” them (which is good and all, but maybe policing their allowance of usage with technology would be better serving. . .I know, you’ve got an argument for that. . . as I’m obviously far off the grid here)
And what of the old high school and college flames reconnecting, never mind one or the other may still be married. . . or maybe you’re just trying to rekindle that whole “what was” business only to discover “what was” in now 40 years in the future and we and it has all been changed by time. . .

And yes I get the whole raise the awareness of current issues and crises. . .the promoting of businesses, the whole global drawing attention to the growing list of the lost and hopefully soon to be found. . .yet I fear our obsession is going too far—

And what’s up with this whole “sexting” business?
Where folks sashay out into the world of casual sex in a way that oddly is rationalized off as safe, as in no body is touching anybody and therefore there is really no sex, no potential disease, no true infidelity or premarital sex, so it’s all harmless—no biggie that you’re posting pics of your intimate areas as it were, looking for love or affirmation or whatever it is you’re looking for in all those wrong kind of places. . .only to see those private images go suddenly viral. . .now there’s a sticky wicket—and then that leads us to the growing sickness with cyber porn, child predators as we open an entire world of technology darkness. . .lets not even talk about cyber stealing. . .

Maybe you’re just feeling really good about yourself these days and you want the cyber world to know it as you upload selfie, after selfie, after selfie. . . .is there not more to your world than you?
And who exactly is it who is seeing these images. . . and just when you may have second thoughts about having posted those pics, hitting delete later doesn’t delete you from cyber space where you and that image remain until the end of time. . . .looking hot and good for ages to come. . .Hummmmmm

We’ve seen the selfie of the young lady, all grins as she snaps a picture of herself while on that special European trip, standing at the gates of Auschwitz—-a big ol happy smile with that cold dark gate standing behind her as the sign of “welcome” still remains. . .maybe she didn’t get that whole history of where she was standing thing. . .

What of the other young American tourists scratching their names into the side of the Colosseum there in Rome then snapping pictures in order to post to FB of their “kilroy was here moment”. . .never mind defacing a National historic treasure of Italy or the arrest, or of the fine. . .
or of the stupidity. . .

What of the tourists mugging for the camera with the bodies of the calcified remains of the victims of Pompeii—maybe it’s just me but that just seems a bit awkward—everyone pull in tight as we snap the pic of us with our arms around the case containing the remains of a human being who met a tragic end. . .everybody smile. . .

Are we so caught up in the moment of snapping that picture that we forget where we are,
what we’re doing. . .too busy to take it all in because we’d much rather get the perfect picture of us with “it”— and not merely of “it”, wherever and whatever it may be—as in look at me, here I am with “it”, at it, on it, under it, in it. . . but I’M here, ME, WE. . . forget it. . .

Oh sure there are the shots of the adrenaline rush moments with the GoPro taking us places most of us will never be or of things we will never see or of perspectives that are not our own. . . of the parachuters, the whitewater rafters, the free fall divers, the skiers, the surfers, the sharks, the rhinos, the birds, our dogs. . .

Yes there is certainly coolness and there is good. . .yet there is sad and there is dark as well. . .

I fear that our focus has become more about us, as in. . . see us, see we, see me. . .
all of this self obsession as a world continues spiraling out of control, as its troubles keep growing- – -yet we keep on smiling and sharing. . .

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20