The Week in Science: Astronauts and Biopsies

I slept a bit later today, so my writing time is short.  Let me capture a few snippets.

--I think of the Artemis mission astronauts heading back to Earth today.  I read about all the processes that have to happen for them to have a safe return and not burn up in re-entry or sink to the bottom of the ocean.

--Earlier this week, when war drums rattled with what seemed to be threats of nuclear annihilation, I thought of the astronauts who might have to stay in space longer--but how long is possible?  I thought of all the songs and novels that have stranded astronauts as part of the plot.  Happily these space travelers are returning to a world that has not been decimated by a nuclear weapon.

--It has been a good teaching week, as last paper assignments start to come together.  But we're all tired.  It's palpable.

--I had three spots biopsied when I went to the dermatologist in March.  Happily, two of them are benign, but the one on my back is a Basal cell carcinoma. So I go in later today for additional scraping and burning (but no stitches). And happily, no melanoma.  Not a huge deal--I'm at the point when I feel lucky that it can be done in the office, with no stitches. And it's not a melanoma.

Fan Letter for Forgotten Poem, "The Moon Remembers"

Like many others, I get the occasional e-mail that tells me that the sender can help me find new readers for my brilliant books, millions and millions of readers.  Yesterday I got a different e-mail, an old-fashioned fan letter of sorts.  

The e-mail writer told me that she had selected my poem for a specific reason:  "This is to let you know that as a member of a Lectio Poetry group that met this morning, I chose your poem 'The Moon Remembers' for our session. Because of the recent NASA mission to send humans farther into space than ever before, and to study the dark side of the moon, I felt fortunate to find your poem to share."

The e-mail concluded this way, "In this world of chaos, 'The Moon Remembers' gave us an hour of peace, of joy, of hope."

Wow--what writer could hope for more than that?  I mean that sincerely.  It is one of the reasons I write, in the hopes of bringing something positive to people.

I don't get many fan letters anymore, and the ones that I get are usually about "Heaven on Earth," perhaps my most famous poem, read on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac.  Yesterday's e-mail referenced "The Moon Remembers."  It's a poem I barely remember writing, and at first, I wondered if she was writing to the wrong poet.

Happily, my blog answers many a question for me.  I posted it in this blog post, and I'm guessing that's how the group leader found my poem.  Even though it's not one of the poems I remember, I'm still happy with it.

Let me post it here again, as I also say a prayer for the Artemis Mission which returns home Friday:

The Moon Remembers

                “I sing and the moon shudders"
                            Li Po, “Drinking Alone by Moonlight”



The moon does not approve of elementary choir
masters who stop the rehearsal, make each quivering
child sing a solo to find the one
who is off key. The helpless moon, marooned
so far away, wishes she could offer sanctuary.

The moon knows what the choir master forgets.

The moon doesn’t understand scales or the division
of voices into the caste systems of chorus:
superior sopranos, dowdy altos, basses as the bubble
of depth holding us up, the star tenor.

The moon remembers what the choir master forgets.

The moon sees our best selves as we sing:
the lonely driver late at night, singing to stay awake,
the melancholy mother, humming Christmas carols
to cheer the babies, the desperate lover
serenading the empty window.

The moon remembers what we all forget.

The moon knows that if we believed in our songs,
strengthened our fragile voices, and sang
as if we meant it, then galaxies would blow
to bits as the universe expands.

Things that Go Bump in the Night

Yesterday morning Trump made a bizarre threat about wiping out a great nation at 8 p.m. EST and ended his post praising the people he had just threatened.  Was he threatening a nuclear weapon?  It sounded like he was, but he's sounded that way before.

Still, I spent the day feeling wary and also darkly amused.  When took my interstate exit to go home in the afternoon, I thought about topping off my gas tank.  If Trump dropped a nuclear weapon at 8 p.m., what would gas prices be on Thursday morning, when I did need more gas?  

During the day, I also reverted to some cold war thinking, some cold war math problems:  if a nuclear bomb is dropped half a world away, how far can radioactive fallout travel?  If there is an electromagnetic pulse, will our electronics be shielded from half a world away?

In the evening, as I waited to see what would happen at 8 p.m., I wrote a letter of recommendation for a student, which seemed like a life affirming thing to do in the face of nuclear threats.  I chatted with my sister on the phone, another life affirming thing to do.  In the last hour before the announcement that the powers that be had backed down, I felt a bit too mind numbed to do much more than listen to a podcast and stare blankly at real estate listings, the way that grown ups amuse themselves when they are too tired to do much else, and the T.V. is too irritating.

Happily, the nuclear night of reckoning has been postponed for another time.  By the time I went to bed, it seemed clear that the latest moment of threat had been resolved in some way.

A few hours later, we both woke up--a noise, like something falling, from a different part of the house.  We listened for a few more minutes and didn't hear anything alarming:  no breaking glass, no voices, no further noises.  We went back to sleep.

This morning, the bird feeder that is attached by suction cups to the sliding glass door is on the deck.  It looks like the bears are awake.  It seems early and cold for bears to be out and about, but then again, what do I really know about the biology/ecology of bears?  

I realize how lucky I am:  I am waking up this morning without war on my doorstep, unlike so many people across the planet.  I am waking up this morning to find that I've had an overnight visitor, but the damage is minimal.

Seeing Clearly and Coldly

I've been up early, an hour earlier than my usual wake up time of 4 a.m.  I decided to go ahead and get up and get a draft of my seminary paper written.  It's due on Thursday, but I had wondered if our professor might extend the due date.  We didn't meet on March 26, so I thought it was possible.  Happily I have a draft of the paper that pleases me, one I'll likely use, even if the due date does get extended.

I finished up the rough draft and went for a walk on this chilly spring morning.  I wanted to see if my camera cleaning had made a difference, and it has.  Here's a picture from Saturday before I cleaned the lens:

And here's a picture taken in less sun but similar weather conditions and time this morning:

I also took this picture:

It inspired a haiku-like creation:

Cold Easter Tuesday

Waning moon held in a claw

Barely budding tree

Easter Sunday Wrap-Up

I am listening to Sting's Nothing Like the Sun.  I am remembering a time that seems long ago now, the first year of grad school, and we were off for Easter, probably just Good Friday and maybe Easter Monday.  I was making hot cross buns with a recipe from The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. While the dough rose, I scraped together my last bit of money and went to the local record store, Sounds Familiar, where I bought the double LP, three songs each side.  I spent Easter week-end enthralled.

Yesterday was different, rainy and dreary for most of the day.  I was happy to see the rain--it's been far too dry.  As we do most Sundays, we headed across the mountain to Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN.

It was a good Easter Sunday.  It's a small, country church, so we don't have what suburban or city churches experience, those folks who show up only for Christmas Eve and Easter.  We are more likely to have brand new visitors on Christmas Eve, not Easter, and even then, it's only one or two.

The church felt full, though, in a similar way yesterday.  It's one of the few days when all members are likely to come, along with some friends and family members tagging along.  In addition, the folks who aren't members but come here and there--they were there too.  It was joyful and a bit noisy.  It was also raining outside, so we don't have as many pictures at the chicken-wire cross covered with flowers; some folks did put flowers on the cross, despite the rain.

We lingered a bit after worship, but it's not the kind of church that has coffee hour afterward, much less an Easter brunch.  Off we went, back across the mountain.

As is often the case for me as a grown up, Easter afternoon was low key.  I felt more wiped out than usual.  Happily, my life is set up so that I can go to bed super early, which is what I did last night.  At one point, I woke up and saw the red streaks of sunset, but not even the possibility of a glorious sunset was enough to rouse me.

This week may be hectic, but it's one of the last full weeks of the semester for me; next week I'll be out on Friday for the Create in Me retreat.  The week after that is a full week again, and then on April 27 and 28, we have the last class day.

That gasping sound you will be hearing across the next few weeks will be me coming up for air.  But these last weeks of busyness feel different--the end is close at hand.  And then, beyond that, summer!

Easter Week-end So Far

Overall, it has been a good week-end.  We don't have any hard and fast Easter week-end traditions:  some years, we make a bunny cake, but most years we don't.  We're always cooking, on Easter week-end or any week-end that we're home.  Some years we watch something with some theology behind it, but not always.

I did some cleaning, as seems right for a week-end that will celebrate resurrection.  I scrubbed down counters, and we washed sheets.  I managed to get the phone case off the phone, which means I could clear out dust and gunk that had been giving my photos a foggy haze--an interesting effect, but nott one I want all the time.  I had been worried to force it off, and it turns out my fears were justified--when I tried to get the case off a year ago, I had started to pry the phone apart--happily, it clicked back into place.

We did lots of cooking and baking.  I baked a special challah for today's worship, along with some shortcakes to go with the strawberries I bought.  But again, cooking and baking is standard at our house.

I got caught up with my grading, although there is still some grading to do.  I wrote my sermon for today (you can read the manuscript in this post on my theology blog).  I went on walks.

We also were the point people to distribute the gate "clickers," the remote that opens the new gate on the back part of the Lutheridge property--it meant we got to see a lot of our neighbors.   One of them brought me these beautiful tulips, which I am sure he grew in his yard:

As always, I am struck by how lucky we are to have a house here.

And now, to put on my festive sandals and head over the mountain to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran, in Bristol, TN.  Worship starts at 10 a.m., and all are welcome.

Good Friday in a Better Place

It is Good Friday, and I'm tired.  But of course I'm tired.  Yesterday I drove down the mountain to teach, drove home, and then my spouse and I drove up I 26 in the opposite direction so that I could preach and preside at Faith Lutheran for Maundy Thursday worship service; for more on that, see this post on my theology blog.

I am reminding myself that I have plenty of time to get all the things done that need to get done today.  The primary thing is grading.  I am caught up at Spartanburg Methodist College, but my online classes need attention.

I also need to write a rough draft of my Easter sermon.  I know what I plan to write, so I am less stressed about that.

But I don't want this blog to just be a catalog of to do lists.  I spent a bit of time looking at old Good Friday posts and thinking about what a strange assortment of experiences I've had.

The body experiences are the ones that come to mind, not the worship experiences:

--In 2022, I went out for my normal walk in the pre-dawn dark and fell and broke my wrist.  There wasn't a clear precipitating event, no trip, no misstep.  One minute I was walking and the next I was falling.  I didn't think I had broken my wrist because it didn't hurt.  I am still a bit spooked by this experience, if we're telling the truth.

--In 2024, I spent the morning of Good Friday in the mammography center getting a more advanced scan.

I've had a wide variety of worship experiences, at various points in the day.  None of them match my memories of childhood Good Friday services, which seemed more dramatic than any other, with tales of torment and spookiness and the big Bible slammed at the end.

I've done a variety of the Stations of the Cross, which always leave me wanting to make my own version, not because I find them lacking but because they are so inspiring.

And of course, there are the days when I have had to work because I was in such a secular setting.  I have always had a liturgical calendar moving alongside my secular life, and they rarely match.

Today, I am in a much better place, both physically (healthy even though I'm carrying 30 pounds more than I would like) and in terms of my work life.  I am grateful on this Good Friday.

Here's a poem from a harder time, back in 2003, a time of many home repairs and infestations.  It was inspired by the time when the termites came out of the ceiling in two places inside the house as they swarmed, and it was awful.  It happened in the spring which made me think of spring holidays:  Easter and Passover, and this poem emerged, published for the first time here:

A Thousand Wings



The termites swarm on Good Friday,
the one day of the year when bread and wine
cannot be consecrated.
The termites fill my book-lined study.
I cannot kill them fast enough.

Finally, I shut the door and weep.
I cry for the Crucified Christ.
I cry for my house, under assault
from insects who have declared war
on wood, as if to avenge His death.
I cry for terrors and tribulations and plagues
that do not pass over.

In the evening, I sweep up a thousand wings.
I dust my shelves and attend to my house,
the way the women must have prepared the corpse,
bathing and anointing with oil

so lost in misery and despair,
resurrection blindsides us,
coming from a direction we could never expect,
a cold tomb, modern chemicals,
a spirit unconquered by minutiae.