The Starlight Night

Look at the stars! look. look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs*, the circle-citadels* there!
Down in the dim woods the diamond delves**! the elves' eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold*** lies!...
Ah, well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.****
---from Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877

*city images, as if the constellations were fortified cities
**the diamond-like stars dive down to the "land of elves"; (Hopkins nor I really believe in elves--it's just a fanciful & joyful flight of poetic symbolism)
***the light of the heavenly bodies is like "free gold" to anyone who takes the trouble to take it in, but it's gold in motion---it won't be there forever
****the prize comes from the purchase made by Jesus Christ; He died for your sins so all this, too, can be yours, along with the forgiveness and life you have in Him

Vapory Mists

[HEH-vell heh-vah-LEEM; Hah-KOHL HAH-vell.]
Vapor of Vapor*; all is (vanishing) vapor
[Mah--yith-ROHK lah-ah-DAHM**]
What profit is it for a man
[B'kohl--eh-mah-LOH sh-yah'-ah-MOHL]
In all his labor which he does
[TACH-ath ha-SHEMM-esh.]
Under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1: 2a-3)

*Often translated as "vanity of vanities"; the Hebrew really says "vapor" because, no matter how much you clutch at vapor, you cannot hold it
**"Adam", a man

Kind of "bleak" taken on its own! But the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes reminds us we get all of our meaning by remembering our Creator in the days of our youth. And we know that in Jesus, we shall have begun and shall more perfectly live that life in heaven which knows of no vanity or uselessness or futility.

What a Waste!

Our Solid Waste Problem

Already in the 1980s, National Geographic alerted readers that so-called bio-degradables don't really break down in landfills. They studied lettuce, for instance, that was nearly 20 years old and still not broken down. And there is much more in the way of thrown-out foodstuffs and yard waste. More recently, William L. Rathje of University of Arizona wrote in his book, Rubbish! the Archeology of Garbage,
"They [landfills] are not vast composters; rather, they are vast mummifiers." He went on to write, "Well-designed and well-mamaged landfills, in particular, seem to be far more apt to preserve their contents for posterity than to transform them into humus or mulch."
Solutions? Compost at home. If you can't create a compost heap, try mini-composting: place food waste on the ground right near plants & partially hidden by the foliage or between plants & slightly spaded into the soil. Use a mulching lawn mower. So far, the U.S. has been blessed with enough space not to worry about this, but the time will come.
Plus, coupling people's desire to become more "green" with the current recession means that maybe we can look at some jobs & technology in green fields. Maybe we could invent giant "rakes" to go in and occasionally turn over detritus in existing landfills so that the bio-degradables will compost. We Americans with our so-called "Yankee ingenuity" have been falling down on the job, so to speak, for some decades now. And we Christians have not followed our first pre-sin injunction to take care of this earth.

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens*, and thrush**
Through the echoing timber does so rise and wring
The ear, it strides like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing limbs, too, have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden---have, get before it cloy***
Innocent mind and Mayday**** in girl and boy,
Most, O Maid's Child*****,
Thy choice and worth the winning.
---Gerard Manley Hopkins, may 1877

*Eggs the color of the sky & reminders of it
**Thrush: the songbird, not the yeast-related infection (ha, ha!!)
***Cloy: to satiate, us. w/something pleasing. Basically, hurry to enjoy this fleeting reminder of Eden before it is spoiled, as the first Eden was by sin
****Mayday: May 1st. Celebrated in Europe with flowers & folk dances. (Happy Mayday! Also, Blessed Ascension. This year, the day commemorating Jesus's bodily Ascension through the clouds, after which we could no longer see Him physically, is also May 1st.)
*****Maid's Child: The Virgin's Son, Jesus. (Roman Catholics devote all of May to Mary.) This suggests that Jesus would choose the "innocent" boys & girls more than anyone else. Actually, no one's innocent & God loves all us rotten sinners just the same.

Birds in Scripture

My soul longed, even yearned
For the courts of Yahweh.
My mind* and my flesh
Cry out to the Living God.
Even the songbird** has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself
Where she may lay her young---
Your altars, Oh Yahweh of Armies,
My King and my God! (Psalm 84:2-3)

(Yahweh says)
"I know every bird in the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the forest are Mine." (Ps. 50:11)

In Yahweh have I trusted:
How do you [plural: "y'all"] say to my soul,
"Flee as a bird to your [plural] mountain"?? (Ps. 11:1)

(O, Yahweh),
Keep me as the apple of Your eye:
In the shadow of Your wings hide me. (Ps. 17:8)

"As birds flying around,
Thus will Yahweh of Armies protect Jerusalem.
Defending, he will deliver.
He will 'pass over' and protect." (Isaiah 31:5)

Mighty Yahweh,
You have made yourself known in your Son, Jesus.
Through His crucifixion,
You have established for us a "New Passover"
Where You "pass over" the wrongs we do
And the failures to do right.

As Jesus said, make us to trust
The way the ravens do
"Which niether sow (grain) nor reap
Nor gather (food) into barns"
And are yet fed by our Heavenly Father.
(Matthew 6:25-27 & Luke 12:22-24)

We are worth so much more to You
And, yet, we fill up our lives
With things that are worthless.
Forgive us, love us, and keep working in us
To give us the simple trust of your little birds.

Detail from a tablecloth sold by Vermont Country Store

[original Bible translations & explanatory verses]

*Literally "heart", which ancient Hebrews considered the seat of the intellect.
**"Sparrow" in some translations

Flowers & Grasses in Scripture

"'Man, born of woman,
is of few days, full of turmoil.
As a flower he springs forth
and fades away;
And as a fleeting shadow,
he does not last.'" (Job14:1-2)
"Man--his days are as grass;
As a flower of the field he thus flourishes." (Psalm 103:15)
"They are in the morning
as new grass which springs up.
In the morning it springs and grows;
in the evening it withers and dries out." (Ps. 90:5b-6)
"A voice says, 'Cry out!'
And I say, 'What shall I cry?'
[God replies],
'All flesh is green grass
and all its loveliness as the flower of the field.'
The grass withers, the flower fades
because the Spirit [or 'breath'] of Yahweh blows upon it.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the Word of God shall stand forever." (Isaiah 40:6-8)
[Messiah says]
"'I am the Crocus* of Sharon,
the Lily of the Valleys.'" (Song of Songs 2:1)
[Because of Messiah Jesus]:
"The wilderness and parched land will be glad;
And the desert-plain will rejoice and blossom;
Like the crocus it will bloom profusely
And rejoice greatly and shout for joy." (Isaiah 35:1-2a)
----original translations

*not really "rose of Sharon"---it's a crocus in Hebrew!!

Vivaldi's Spring

[This is the explanatory sonnet Antonio Vivaldi wrote to preface the "Spring" Concerto, part of the "Four Seasons" Cycle.]

ALLEGRO
Spring has arrived,
And joyfully the birds greet her with glad song,
[FLOWING STREAMS]/LEGATO
While at the Zephyr's* breath
The streams flow forth with a sweet murmur.

Her chosen heralds, thunder and lightning,
Come to envelop the air in a black cloak;
Once they have fallen silent, the little birds
Return anew to their melodious incantation.

LARGO
Then on the pleasant, flower-bedecked meadows,
To the happy murmur of fronds and plants,
The goatherd sleeps next to his trusty dog.

ALLEGRO
To the festive sound of rustic bagpipes
Nymphs and shepherds dance beneath
The beloved sky
At the glorious appearance of spring.
----Antonio Vivaldi

*Zephyr: the warm west wind