Lost Butterflies

Yesterday we visited the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota.  On the grounds, among all the lovely plantings, is an art gallery.  The paintings currently on exhibit are watercolors of plants and animals.  Also displayed in the gallery was a case of butterflies, all beautifully mounted.  I cannot see a case of mounted butterflies without a flashback to my childhood.

From the second grade through my senior year in high school, I had a friend with whom I competed academically.  We seesawed back and forth for top grades in every subject.  When his grades were higher, I never was jealous.  I was, however, somewhat envious of ideas to which he was exposed and of which I was ignorant.

His parents were college-educated and mine were not.  I would sometimes realize that he was aware of the existence of a body of knowledge to which I had not the slightest exposure.  I remember him coming to school and talking about fossils.  I had never heard of a fossil, and he had been out hunting for them.

So it was with butterflies.  He brought to school a couple of cases of butterflies.  They were properly mounted in secure cases, so that they could be easily seen, but not damaged.  I knew I couldn’t afford such lovely display settings, but I figured I could come up with a poor man’s version.

Of course, this was in “ancient” times when there was no internet, so I turned to books to learn how to catch and preserve butterflies and other insects.  We used fountain pens to write with at that time, and the ink with which they were filled came in glass bottles which had a little well at the top edge.  One would tilt the bottle to put ink in the little well and then fill the pen from the well.  From books I learned that I could use an old ink bottle, place the insect in the bottle and some noxious liquid (I don’t remember what) in the well.  The fumes killed the insect and the wings could then be spread and the insect/butterfly displayed.  I fashioned my display cases out of shallow cardboard boxes lined with cotton. 

I don’t remember how many butterflies and other insects I had collected when disaster struck.  I had been away….probably to summer camp, and when I returned, I took my collection off the shelf above my desk.  To my horror, I discovered that in my absence, a mouse had obviously checked out my collection.  The wretched creature had eaten all of the bodies and left behind the apparently unpalatable wings, along with his numerous droppings.

I was sad….very, very sad.  I don’t think I cried, because I always tried not to cause my mother any pain.  She understood my desire to learn anything and everything new.  She was grieved when I couldn’t have the tools to learn that others had or the quality and variety of clothing that some of my friends owned.   I never wanted her to be sad, but I can still remember my own sadness.  It wasn’t just the loss of the collection.  I felt the social and economic difference between my friend and me.  We were intellectual equals, but he was a rung above me.  He never behaved that way, but I felt it.

So, yesterday I looked at the display of butterflies securely behind glass, unavailable to marauding rodents, and thought about my childhood sadness.  I also thought about the life I have lived during the past 55 years.  I grew up, became a nurse, used those skills to pay my way through college, married a truly wonderful man, worked when I wanted to, and stayed home with children when I wanted to,  I have had a great deal more happiness than sadness in my life.  I am grateful to the gracious and loving God who has gone before me paving the way.  The lost butterflies are a tiny blip of past sadness that now brings a smile.   But, I really hate mice.

Genuine Need or Scam?

Today we got together with friends whom we see once a year when we are in Florida.  We ate lunch at the same sub shop we had eaten in last year when we spent the day together.  It brought to mind the young man we had met there.


When we pulled into the parking lot at the sub shop last year, a man about 20 years old stood near the entrance of the building in apparent distress.  He asked anyone who looked in his direction if they could help him.  His story was that he was a college student in another city who had come to the Sarasota area the night before to party out on one of the keys.  He and his buddy had partied too much, and his friend, who was the driver, had been arrested for DUI.  His friend was in jail, the car was impounded and his wallet had been left behind in the car.  He was in a strange city with no money, no food, no friends and no way to get back to college.  His mother was in Israel visiting her brother, and he was afraid to contact his father.  At least, that was his story.


We invited him in to the sub shop with us.  Our friends, who were treating us, paid for his lunch.  We then drove him to a bus stop where he had supposedly determined that he could get a bus back to his campus.   My husband and I gave him the money for a bus ticket.


We drove off wondering if his story was true, and hoping we had not just given drug money to a con man.  Questions like this usually aren't answered.


EXCEPT...
When my son was in college, he was walking across campus one day when a pickup truck pulled up to the curb next to him.  A man got out and spun the tale that his daughter had just been in a car accident in a nearby village.  He claimed to be a maintenance man on the campus, and that his boss had lent him his pickup truck to go check on his daughter, but the truck didn't have enough gas in it.  He asked my son for money for gas. 


Now, my son is one of the smartest people you could meet, but he is also one of the most compassionate.  He knew the story might be a scam....but what if it was true?  He gave the man some money.  The guy promised he would repay him.


Months went by.  My son was again walking across campus when the same pickup truck pulled up along side him.  The same man got out and told the same sorry tale.  Somehow managing a straight face, my son replied, "You know, I would be happy to lend you that money, if you had paid me back the last time."


Somewhat flustered, the man insisted that he had not borrowed money from my son previously.


"I'm sorry to say that you did," my son said.


The man hopped in his truck and sped off, but not before my son memorized the license plate number which he later reported to campus security.


With this in mind, we looked for the "college student" at the sub shop today.  He wasn't there.  I guess we'll never know whether his story was true or not.  

A Hand in the Darkness

When I first stirred this morning, I changed positions and realized in my sleepiness that my hand had ended up next to my husband's hand.  I put my hand into his and his fingers curled around mine.  I thought that in over 42 years, he has never pushed my hand away or pulled his away....not even in his sleep.  What a comfort...a hand in the darkness.
Several years ago, I wrote the following poem about the ultimate hand.


Reaching


Fragile fingers searching, seeking,
Pat a mother's face,
Soft and pink and trusting.


Hands with urgency caressing,
Lover and beloved,
Passion, all-consuming.


Arms outstretched, embracing,
Joyfully I stand,
Life's winds about me rushing.


Still outstretched, but groping,
Writhing in agony and pain,
For an answer longing.


Through death's drape reaching,
To grasp You on the other side,
Reflecting and wondering.


Searching, caressing, stretching,
Was it not You all along
For whom I was seeking?


You for whom I long when in pain,
Whom I embrace in joy,
By whom I am consumed
In whom I trust,
My Lord,
My God.
It is You for whom I reach.!

I Don't Want to Live to Be Ninety

I had my annual physical this week.  I told my doctor that I don’t want to live to be ninety.  He advised me not to come to him if that was the case.  I told him that at some point I would stop making appointments.

As I look toward old age, I seriously don’t know how to proceed.  Do I keep seeking routine medical care and gradually slide into multiple prescriptions that keep me going and prolong my days?  Do I go my merry and un-medicated way hoping that at some point, I will have within me a ticking time bomb that suddenly explodes and takes me out quickly?

I have seen what the tenth decade looks like.  My father lived until a month shy of 91.  My in-laws are currently 92 and 93.   All have by the age of 90 been quite deaf and experiencing vision problems in spite of cataract surgery.  All have been on many, many medications.  All have had issues of balance and mobility.  All have become rather grumpy.

It is heart-breaking to see people who have been married over 70 years struggling to communicate, because they cannot hear one another.  When one raises ones voice loudly enough to be heard, the tone begins to sound disrespectful.  Irritability ensues. 

My father lived with us the last eight years of his life.  My in-laws stubbornly live in their own home.  Many people say some version of, “Oh, isn’t it wonderful that they are still in their own home?!”  Actually, I don’t think so.  They can no longer keep up with house maintenance, car maintenance, paying bills, fixing meals and some aspects of personal care.  We stop in often.  They have help with laundry and cleaning and personal care and yard work.  But it isn’t really enough.  The bathroom is neither safe nor convenient, but they have refused our offers to help them make the changes that would benefit them.

I really don’t want to find myself in that situation.  But, what is the alternative?  I don’t believe in suicide.  If you check yourself into a senior center that provides levels of care….independent living, assisted living, and nursing home care, you have only solved some of the problems.  You are out from under the maintenance issues and the struggle to find appropriate help as ability declines.  But, if you are not fortunate enough to keel over abruptly, you have locked yourself into gradual decline in a skilled nursing facility where multiple medications and good nursing care could keep you around to die inch by inch for years.

While I recognize that I need to trust God to pick the time of my death, I do think we can influence quality of life by our basic health habits, the medications we chose to take, and the surgical procedures we opt for or against.  However, no matter how well I take care of myself, the possibility always exists of a drunk driver hitting me head-on or a "nut case" being near me with a loaded gun.  But then, that is not terribly upsetting to me, because death is NOT the worst thing that can happen to me.  Since I pray regularly for His will to be done, I would have to believe that an incident that suddenly terminated me was not outside of His plan.

I would like to live long enough for all my grandchildren to be able to remember me as a person who loved God and desired to honor Him.  I would like to live as long as I am accomplishing God’s purposes for my life.  I want out, at the point where my death accomplishes more than my life.  That is what I will pray for!

What I didn't know about Prometheus

In my on-going attempt to read all of “The Great Books,” I just finished “Prometheus Bound” by Aeschylus.  My previous acquaintance with Prometheus was through a book given to me by my favorite aunt when I was a child.  It was a large, but not very thick book of Greek myths.  As I remember it, each myth was told on one to three pages and included a color picture portraying the story.  The grizzly image of Prometheus chained to rocks with a bird about to tear into his liver became branded in my visual memory where it still resides.

I don’t know if in the attempt to make the story appropriate for young readers, major themes in the myth were simplified to the point of being unrecognizable, or if I, in my immaturity, just didn’t catch them.  I knew that Prometheus had angered Zeus by giving fire to humans, but I have now come to realize that I didn’t have the whole picture regarding Prometheus.

What I didn’t know about Prometheus:

1.        It is not only fire that he gave to humans.  He claims that prior to his involvement, humans lived in caves.  He taught them to build homes with timber and bricks, to use animals for their benefit for farm work and transportation, to make ships, to compound drugs to combat disease, and to use writing.  Prior to his involvement, he says, men were senseless beasts, and he gave them sense.  He sees himself as the savior of man who has mitigated man’s suffering.

2.       He rails against Zeus.  He does not believe Zeus to be the most powerful god, but the god who currently wields control through self-made laws and intimidation.  Other characters in this play, admonish him to hold his tongue lest his punishment become greater.  Prometheus persists in his defiance.  At one point he says:

Go thou and worship; fold thy hands in prayer,

And be the dog that licks the foot of power!

Nothing care I for Zeus; yea, less than naught!

Let him do what he will, and sway the world

His little hour; he has not long to lord it among the Gods.

3.        Prometheus also claims to be a prophet.  He foretells the future of Io who appears in the play.  He also claims to know when his own suffering will end, and when and how Zeus will fall from power, although this he refuses to reveal.

With whirl of feathery snowflakes and loud crack

Of subterranean thunder; none of these

Shall bend my will or force me to disclose

By whom ‘tis fated he shall fall from power.

Among the intriguing concepts in this play:

*Thou are a better counselor to others than to thyself …..a common problem for most of us.  We see problems and recognize corrective actions for others, but we don’t have the insight to see the same in ourselves.

*True marriage is the union that mates equal with equal.  I’m all in favor of that!  I have seen some unions that appeared to be a mismatch, but that have seemed to work as observed from the outside.  I would have stayed single before entering into such a union.

*I would not, if I might, change my misfortunes for thy vassalage…spoken like a patriot. 

The question arises while reading “Prometheus Bound,” when is it appropriate to be defiant?  Was the original Tea Party appropriate?  Is the current Tea Party appropriate?  Prometheus shakes his fist in the face of Zeus.  That’s OK with me.  Some individuals today shake their fist in the face of the One I believe to be the one true God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe.  I’m afraid that is not OK.  I might be wrong in my beliefs, but I fear for those who are defiant, if I am right.

When is it right and good to defy authority?

When is it just plain foolish?

Who has asked this of you?

“The multitude of your sacrifices---what are they to me?....who asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?”  Isaiah 1:11-12

                                    I rushed into His presence,

                                    To say a prayer or two,

                                    I heard a voice whisper,

                                    “Who has asked this of you?”

                                    A check dropped in the offering,

                                    The pride was wrong, I knew.

                                    I heard a voice behind me,

                                    “Who has asked this of you?”

                                    I lit incense and candles,

                                    As the flame and perfume grew,

                                    A haunting voice questioned,

                                    “Who has asked this of you?”

                                    I sang a worship chorus,

                                    The words I mouthed weren’t true,

                                    I heard a voice like thunder,

                                    “Who has asked this of you?”

                                    “This trampling of my courts,

                                    This hasty running through,

                                    This thoughtless careless worship,

                                    Who has asked this of you?”

Pregnant? Need a place to live?

Brook Haven House is a lovely Victorian home located in the village of Carthage, NY.  It is staffed by warm and caring house-parents who are waiting to receive young ladies who are pregnant and in need of a safe place to live.

Brook Haven House is a Christian Maternity Home which has four private bedrooms with shared bathroom and laundry facilities.  Meals are prepared and shared family style.  Located near the center of the village, it is within easy walking distance of banks, a drug store, beauty salons, churches, the library, the post office and other shops.  Hospital services are minutes away.

Services offered at Brook Haven House include:  transportation to doctor’s appointments, GED/tutoring, on site visits by public health nurses, instruction in natural childbirth, financial planning, and help with homemaking, parenting, family planning and other life-skills.  There is also help in making the transition to independent living when the young lady is ready.  A young mother may stay at the home until her baby’s first birthday.

Brook Haven House has a broad base of support in the community, both from many different religious denominations and also from local businesses. 

If you are a young lady in need of a home during your pregnancy, or if you are a professional looking for a referral source, please contact:

Brook Haven House

P.O. Box 44

Carthage, NY 13619

(315) 493-1735

Website:  www.brookhavenhouse.org

Although this home is in northern New York, referrals are accepted from anywhere.  Past residents of the home have come from New York City and other locations around the state.  Please give Brook Haven a call, if you are looking for this type of assistance.