Echoes and Stars

1. My recommendation is that you quit your devotions. Quit reading a verse in the morning and then a short piece of writing about that verse, so you can just move on to the next one tomorrow. My recommendation is – choose a big passage like Matthew 6:19-34, Colossians 1:9-20, Psalm 23, Colossians 3:1-17, or Philippians 2:3-16 and then memorize that passage and recite it from memory every morning till it is part of the furniture of your mind. Then add another long passage. Then when you go through hard times, those words will have formed how you think already, so that going forward the voice of the King of the Universe will remind you of what is real reality.

2. Our local library is closed for the foreseeable future. But I think they should let me check something out from the poetry section because I am pretty sure my germs are the only ones in that area, seeing as how I’ve never seen another soul there.

3. I do worry about how all the video streaming will affect churches. Will it affect attendance in a culture that already chooses baseball practice over corporate worship? I almost hope it won’t be successful and that people will not enjoy it to the point of craving corporate worship and the sacraments.

4. I am just going to go ahead and assume that Wendell Berry has not even noticed what is happening.

5. If everything is filtered through a conservative or liberal political lens, then that is mostly likely the religion you actually follow and place your trust in.

6. Wallace Stevens said poets are priests of the invisible.

7. Maybe this will show us the value of slowing down and drinking in a simpler life. Maybe this experience will be a sermon we all need to heed. You don’t need to fill your life or your kid’s life with activities. Boredom is good. You do not always have to be entertained. A simple dinner made with what you have on hand is good.

8. For those who think this is a hoax, I am not saying you are wrong, but it is hard for me to believe you are right. Think about how many people would have to be in on it. Think about all the nurses and doctors. Is the hoax about the danger? Is the hoax about whether it exists? What kind of proof would you need to believe it to be real and not a hoax?

9. Not ashamed to be reading LOTR again.

10. I love to sit in my front yard during the day and during the night. Because of this we will sometimes meet people and they will recognize us as the ones who sit in our front yard at wave at everyone. I want to be known as “the waving neighbor.” Well, one night about seven years ago, I thought long and hard about the value of what you can see up in the sky with the naked eye on a clear night.

Another concern I have in the midst of this pandemic with it’s need for social isolation is that we will become more addicted to being entertained by a screen. I hope I am wrong and the glories of books and music and the woods and our front yards will become new again.

The moon, when available, is free, by the way.

From the far reaches of your front yard
breaks the moon’s playful beams,
for which we’d pay full fortunes,
were they shut off from us in the dark.