fly away

worker holding a birdthe big story on MPR this morning was on the return of birds to Alaska. It's never been news that lots of birds return to Alaska in April until this year. Now there are scores of birdologists scouring the countryside scooping up bird droppings to see if any of these fowl are infected with avian flu.

The "news" is (almost) always in the fear-mongering business. When I listen, watch, or read the news, I can count on either having my hair stand on end or getting numb from the horror, terror, or shear stupidity of what passes for news. Cynical? yes, I admit it. But I keep listening to see if there might be a positive development in the health of the patient. None yet.

This morning's story was rich with the low rumble of a fear that hasn't yet reached an audible level. There have been other stories of many birds and a few people dying from this dread disease in other countries. But we Americans haven't experienced the numbing fear of this plague reaching our shores--invading our tidy little world. Today's story resonates with the fear that it's only a matter of time before the preliminaries are over and the outbreak is launched, and the mask of safety is torn off, and panic begins to spread.

God forbid.

Maybe he will; maybe he won't. In any event, I rest in his sovereign control of this and everything else in the world. The psalmist reminds us:
In Yahweh I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
"Flee like a bird to your mountain,

for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;

if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
Yahweh is in his holy temple;
Yahweh's throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test, the children of man.

Yahweh tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind
shall be the portion of their cup.

For Yahweh is righteous; he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.
(Ps 11:1-7)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

simple update

Well, Margy got out of the hospital after only three days. Not that she was well. She'd gotten rehydrated, the pain was more or less under control, and she was eating again. That's a lot to be thankful for; and we were. Today, almost two weeks after her release from the krankenhaus, she had her first real treatment of her back/neck problem. She went to Dr. Jeff, a doctor of osteopaty in Madelia, who put her on a monster machine called a DRX9000 for about 30 minutes. Her head was placed in a special molded form connected to a strap that exerted up to six pounds of pressure designed to decompress her herniated discs. When we drove home, she said she was free of pain in her left arm for the first time in three weeks. Praise God! If she continues to improve with this treatment, she'll probably be visiting Madelia twice a week for the next eight weeks. And then we hope she never has to return again!
Read more

behold, a puppy

Image
The conversations with Jasmine and Margy have been going on for months and months, but taking care of Pouncer and Lucy brought it all to a head: they wanted a dog... badly. And there were lots of good reasons for their argument. Jasmine would benefit from the added responsibility, companionship, and after the dog grows up, protection. A nine-year-old girl in today's world needs some protection if she's going to walk down a street, even a safe midwestern street. On my side, I pointed out all the downside challenges I could think of, knowing that one day each of them would wonder in her heart-of-hearts, "What was I thinking when I said I wanted a dog?!?" I made sure they heard my warnings, but the cry of their hearts was for a dog. Fast forward: adoption day for Esty, our new Brittany, was Thursday the 23rd. Nine weeks old, she's just getting into the gangling puppy stage. Margy and Jasmine were delighted with her. Before the sun had set, she had my heart, too. Jasm...
Read more

soon and very soon: a new address

Image
Yesterday I drove home from work and saw a "SOLD" sign on the For Sale sign on our house. What an amazing transition from the discouraged place Margy and I were at only two weeks before. She was in the hospital with terrible back/neck pain, and the prospect of cleaning up the house for showings at the drop of a hat stirred up even more pain. So we agreed we'd just take the house off the market and wait until we did all those things on our "to-do" list that was nagging at us. We got the deck done (thanks to Nic), and cleared out the storage room in the basement so it wasn't wall-to-wall junk (thanks to Josh--and us!), but the list included painting, recarpeting the family room, etc. Lots of work. And now we don't have to! But we do need to find another place to live. This weekend we'll start a marathon of looking at other people's houses in the vicinity of the university. Open doors... soon one of them might be ours.
Read more