Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

If hell is a place full of wailing and the gnashing of teeth, then my
friends, we are already there. Even though the sun shines and the
breeze is very soft today there is wailing. Even though work has
been fairly steady this month there is gnashing of teeth. Even
though there is great love abounding I believe we may already be in
the house of punishment.

For my part, my husband is driving to Pikeville Kentucky to the
funeral of his best friend Chuck who was killed Monday afternoon
when an excavator fell on him. Of the six boys in my husband’s
childhood posse, he is the only one still alive. He is only 48. If
God knows statistics husband should live to be very old and die
peacefully in his sleep. None of the others did. Wailing, wailing
and gnashing of teeth.

Middle sister is in the hospital hooked up to IV antibiotics with an
unknown infection. Wailing, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And I am waiting, as are many others, to find out if someone I love
much is sick. Wailing, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

For most of us there are some childhood years unmarked by illness,
disaster and death, but after the first, our innocence is lost and
forever after we live in the shadow of the valley of death until it
claims us. By the middle years you realize that the average life span
is a joke and like Kali you walk around with the heads of the dead
hanging in your subconscious.

Today, no bluebird could make me feel that earth is almost
heaven. May God hold you close Charles Ivan Griffith.

Free Cell

Free Cell is the quickest measure of daily brain function I
know of. On a good day, I can win two or three games in a
row in fairly fast order. On not so good days, I manage to
win, but in a slower fashion, maybe even resorting to
starting a game over. On really bad days, I don’t win much,
and the puzzle does not unwind for me. On those days, I
try to focus on such things as polishing the furniture,
looking out the window and making polite chit chat. This is
one of those days.

We had oldest son’s 30th birthday party on Saturday. Much
cake and ice cream was consumed and a good time was had
by all. Youngest sister and oldest boy had an argument
about religion, the usual standard for discussion in our
family. The rest of us bunched up in the front room, leaving
them the dining room. Of course once they realized they
had been abandoned they came to join us. We declared the
front room to be a religion and politics free zone. It
appeared that some success would be had in achieving
polite discourse until daughter sweetly mentioned how
much she likes the print over the sofa (Krishna and Radha),
after some moments of verbal juggling, much enjoyed by
daughter, the possible tempest passed. Youngest sister,
clearly cued in that there was something she should object
to in the print, could not find that objectionable thing and so
the talk once again found a polite, banal, happy path.
Thanks in no small part to the Baptists’ emphasis on not
learning anything real about other religions. Sigh...

Mother was concerned about the location of certain items of
furniture that were not visible. She did not admire my open
spaces, my flexible floor plan, my newly patched and mostly
bare walls. She was miffed that I had removed the
mahogany glass cabinet, she was not mollified when I told
her I had relocated it to the office. She did not like my
pottery collection here and there, it belonged in the case.
Oh well. The youngest sister, the above mentioned Baptist,
was most impressed that so much had been moved since
Christmas. How she wondered, did I get spouse to move all
that stuff? I refrained from telling her.

Yesterday, youngest son was to come fetch me at noon. At
what I believed to be 10:30 he arrived. I was still in my
robe, unwashed and frumpled. I was slightly surprised that
it was actually 12:30. He was 30 minutes late, not an hour
and a half early. The time issue makes me unhappy so in
petulant and useless rebellion I did not change the clocks,
and so for a day or two or three I will have to add an hour
to the time. Then in a day or two or three I will realize that
I am being silly and will adjust the darn things.

Youngest son patiently waited for me to unfrumple, which I
did with all good haste. We went to the Chattanooga Zoo,
which is very small and almost nice. I enjoyed it much
EXCEPT the poor Donkey had hooves so long that he
could not properly walk. (Yes, yes I did complain) The
Chimps seemed very sad. The Snow Leopards are
gorgeous. The goats were much fun and I managed to lure
a small pig from his shadowed barn into the sunlight.

After the Zoo I persuaded youngest son to go with me to
the Labyrinth at New Hope Pres. It is outdoors, made of
gravel and brick, and is in need of some repair to the outer
edges. I walked it, it took much longer then I expected. I
like it. I did not achieve any Zen like state but it did feel
good. At some point you are just on the path, not with a
destination, just on the path. Maybe that is the whole of it
really. We go inward, we go outward, with only one way in
and one way out, if you don’t cheat and just go across, like
someone I know. We are born, we die, and in between we
are just on the path.

All in all a very good day.