Time for angelic intervention?

Today's posting is necessarily brief. There's an online video this afternoon I want to watch [Upstream – Film Screening with Robert Macfarlane, Rob Petit & Hauschka]; followed by a trip to do our Community Supported Agriculture pickup. Plus, I'm mad at the world today. Here's one reason why:

Couple who tested positive for Covid is arrested after boarding flight

Another string of reasons has to do with trying to cope with the ongoing stupidity and malevolence originating from tRUMP, Giuliani and 99% of the rest of the GOP. 

Meanwhile, the Democrats are busy throwing spitballs at each other and "strongly worded memos" at Republicans.

Another example, annoying but not deadly, the registration tabs on my Jeep are due for renewal by the end of this month. In what used to pass for normal, by now I would have received a notice in the mail and would have gone to the friendly local deputy registrar's office and renewed them. As of yesterday's mail, the renewal notice from the state (Minnesota) hasn't yet arrived. To avoid standing in line outside in the cold (registrar has a small office and COVID-19 is prevalent), when and if the renewal notice ever arrives, we renewed online this morning. The state of Minnesota charged us an extra $5.66 to renew online. How many other places pull that kind of crap? Even the IRS doesn't charge to file online anymore (we think that's right).

time for the better angels of our nature to help us?

Photo by J. Harrington

All in all we appear to have created a world that functions less and less well for ordinary people. Perhaps its time for the anarchists to organize into a real political party. It would probably be better than what the mainstream democrats and republicans offer these days. Look at how well we're handling the COVID-19 crisis compared to New Zealand.

For many years now we've had a tradition of giving our daughter an angel to go on the Christmas tree as a birthday present. This year we'll do it again. Over the years we've honored a small host of angels that way. It seems that this is the year we need to call on them to protect us from each other and our individual and combined stupidity and greed and limited competence. That's the end of today's rant. May all our tomorrows be better.

Questions About Angels

By Billy Collins

Of all the questions you might want to ask

about angels, the only one you ever hear

is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time

besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin

or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth

or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?

Do they swing like children from the hinges

of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?

Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,

their diet of unfiltered divine light?

What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall

these tall presences can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole

in a river and would the hole float along endlessly

filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive

in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume

the appearance of the regular mailman and

whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

No, the medieval theologians control the court.

The only question you ever hear is about

the little dance floor on the head of a pin

where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed to make us think in millions,

billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse

into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:

one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,

a small jazz combo working in the background.

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful

eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over

to glance at his watch because she has been dancing

forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

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