Hope...

I thought all birds fly south for south for the winter. Apparently they don't.

All winter, I've had the pair of robins that nested at the corner of the back porch, where the roof gutter curves back toward the side wall, as my company.  Each time I sit on the back steps, awaiting Amos to conduct his business, one or both of the pair chirp at me.  Sitting on a power line or branch of one of my trees, the two of them watch over us.  Whether they long for company or they are worried about their nest, I have savored the sight of them, with their broad, round, red chests.  Something about their generous girth comforts me in the dead of winter.

Of course, I like the chirping, too.

But how in the world did they survive all the bloody snow that we've had, along with so many days of sub-zero temperatures????

The wood that Firewood Man brought me is actually a tree.  He heard of someone who had a tree that needed taking down and took care of it early, so I could have wood.  Yes, that means I am burning green wood.  No, it is not GREEN.

The first three fires were rather frustrating for me, because I have my fire-making skills down to a fine art.  I can set up the fire, light it, and have the wood engulfed in flames within two minutes.  I had to change my tactics with green wood.  In fact, I didn't even know it was possible to burn green wood,  And for three nights, I was certain that it wasn't.  I had to light and relight and relight and relight the fire for well over an hour each time.

Then, through trial and error, I learned that I had to lay the fire with increased kindling, smaller logs in the crossed stack, and two fire starters.  Once again, I can lay a fire, light it, and fetch fresh ice packs whilst it starts.

In my opinion, green ash burns better than a lot of wood.  I have to tend the fire less, use less logs, and have a greater amount of heat output.  Oddly enough, I also do not have to worry about buried coals the next night.  I mean, I do know how to bank coals, but usually do not, since I gave up nightly fires to save money.  With the weather warming and a fair amount of the tree left on my back porch, I have been a bit more liberal in frequency of my fire.  Primarily this is because I am wanting to strip and stain the back porch this summer and care not to have to relocate all the leftover wood to the garage for the duration of the project.

Just how long will it take, do you think, to strip the back porch using my heat gun???

Once back to bare wood, it is either repaint or stain.  The current paint is far too chipped to simply paint over it.  I am hoping the heat gun does its magic whilst the weather is still cool this spring (IF spring ever comes) and then Firewood Man will power wash the wood for me.  The staining part will be a breeze.  The stripping???  Well, I have high hopes in that little heat gun.  High hopes.

Hope.  What is that?  Really?  I do not think it is a feeling.  But, then again, I know little of feelings.  Mostly, I would say it is a knowing, a certitude of sorts.

I am supposed to send a re-cap of my catechesis lesson to my pastor, so that he can see what I learned and plan for the next lesson.  It took me 10 days to write it.  Ten days, much shaking, and three emptying-of-my-stomach moments.

I really don't know to do with hope.  And I think that I am afraid that, in sending the re-cap, I will learn that what I think I learned which granted me ease in crossing the threshold of the sanctuary is not actually true ... or right ... or correct.

There, how's that for standing naked in public.

A while ago, I was watching a show and wrote down two things I heard in it.  However, I forgot to write down which show I was watching.

Without fear there would be no courage.  A simple thought, but one I had not considered.   I mean, for one so burdened with fear, I had not thought of fear's possible companion.

When people hurt children, they plant monsters inside of them.  Whilst certainly not true, surely this is a thought that is specious.  It seems true. It feels true.  And it is the source of so much fear.  And doubt.  You think you are the monster.  You know you are the monster.  Then you are shown you are actually the monster.  Great, but what then?

In Battlestar Galactica's "Sometimes a Great Notion," there is this scene where Kara Thrace (Starbuck) finds her charred body on a planet.  She asks, "If that's me lying there, then what am I?  She screams over and over, "If that is me, then what am I?  What am I?  What am I?"  In a way, I think I scream inside, If I am not the monster, then what am I?

Odd to think of Battlestar Galactica just now.  For surely that is a most complicated mix of hope and despair, of bitterness/anger/blame and forgiveness.  The struggle to forgive is probably the most fascinating part of the series, especially between father and son.  Lee Adama does not really want to forgive his father, and yet he finds himself doing so, again and again and again.  Even the despicable Gaius Baltar is forgiven, is redeemable.  The man who caused the death of almost all of humanity.  Just thinking about it makes me want to watch the story all over again.

I cannot think of another show where hope plays such a pivotal role in the storyline.  There is one where forgiveness does:  Doctor Who.  In that, I find it utterly fascinating how the Doctor always offers forgiveness if the aggressor is willing to cease, to cease striving, to set aside the evil work and be willing to turn away from it.  I cannot think of a single episode where the choice was made to be forgiven.  And the execution of justice, of judgment, takes such a terrible toll on the Doctor.

How must it be for our Creator to watch His creation turn away from Him and chose death?  Forgiveness won for us was done so with a suffering, an agony of which we can never conceive.  And yet some still deny.

I wonder if that is so because hope is hard.
Seeing, tasting, believing in hope in a fallen world is hard.
Holding onto hope in a fallen world is hard.

I knew I was the monster.  Now, I know that I am not.  So what am I?


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!