Mary in a Time of Climate Change

I met the artist Jill Ross through an online journaling group offered by artist Vonda Drees.  That feels like a very different time and world, and in a way, it was, back in 2018.  We were journaling our way through  Joyce Rupp's Open the Door: A Journey to the True Self.  I first blogged about the experience in this post, but there were others.  Through the years, we did some additional journaling classes online together.

Beginning of a Mosaic by Jill Ross

A few days ago, Jill posted this picture on Facebook with this caption:  "Day One- New Adventure Series, Mary in the time of Climate Change," and I wrote to say it would make a great poem title.  Then I wrote to ask if she'd mind if I wrote the poem.

I haven't written the poem yet, but I wanted to make sure I captured the idea.  I've used Biblical and mythological characters, like Noah's wife and Cassandra, to talk about climate change in past poems, but never Mary.

Noah's wife seems like a much more obvious choice than Mary, but I'm guessing it's because I haven't really thought about it much.  I immediately thought of the refugee angle (the flight into Egypt in the Gospel of Matthew), but is that a result of climate change?  Hmmm.

Let me capture some possible lines and see if they lead to anything:

--I have watched the grapes retreat to cooler climates.

--I know what it's like to flee a dictator.

--I have lost my children too.

--Blue is my color, my color and my mood.

--You have feared the flood and the fire.

Sunday Wrap Up: Sundaes on Sunday and Helene Memories

Yesterday, we had worship in the picnic pavilion at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  It was a bit chilly, but we continued on with worship as planned.  For more on worship, I wrote this blog post, or you can go straight to the recording of the sermon.

We had a potluck lunch with ice cream sundaes (Sundaes on Sunday!) after worship.  I looked across the field behind the pavilion with rolled hay and not for the first time did I think, I have fallen into a Norman Rockwell painting--and I mean that in the best possible way.

On our way home, we stopped at the grocery store.  I wanted better cheddar cheese to go with the apples I bought, and I picked up a bottle of white wine too.  It was as perfect an autumnal supper as I thought it would be.

Melancholy nipped at the edges of the day.  It was the anniversary of the worst damage of Hurricane Helene, and I had that on the brain as we went across the part of I 26 that had to be rebuilt after the Nolichucky River flooded in Erwin, Tennessee.  There were homes and manufacturing plants and a hospital and a radio station that aren't there anymore.

I also felt a bit of sadness scrolling through everyone else's memories and also a post on a friend's birthday that her husband posted.  She died suddenly and unexpectedly in February, and he invited us to post memories on his post earlier this week.  It was wonderful to read and remember, but also deeply sad, because she wasn't even 60 yet.

I fell asleep early as I often do on Sundays, but it was a good sleep, unlike Friday's sleep because of relentless headache because of commuting stop/slow down.  

And now for the week ahead:  Thursday and Friday are Fall Break, with midterm grades due Wednesday, so it will be a different week.

Saturday Fragments: Weather, Walking, and Apples

It has been a good week overall, yet I still arrive at this Saturday feeling a bit fragmented.  Let me capture a few fragments:

--I am still trying to decide if my apple comparing review exercise in my Nonfiction Writing class was effective.  In some ways, it was:  we had a great conversation about the apples, but we're still in the process of translating that experience to the writing of reviews.

--I haven't done as much walking this week--we've had several very rainy mornings, and while I don't mind walking in the rain, I worry more about walking in rain in the dark, as I must do with my MWF schedule.

--While I haven't done much poetry revising, I've been revising a short story I found in my files.  It didn't need much revising, so I don't know how much I should be patting myself on the back.

--We've had the arrival of our first cool weather--finally!  I want to bake, but I'm also aware of how many calories my fall favorites contain and how much time some of them take to create.

--I decided to do some tasks out of order this morning.  I went on a full moon walk--lovely!

--Yesterday was a day that many folks were celebrating Dolly Parton.  My spouse found 2 possible movies for us to watch.  I wasn't really up for 9 to 5.  Instead, we watched Straight Talk (1992), where Dolly plays a woman who leaves a bad boyfriend and heads off to interesting adventures in Chicago, some of which involve James Woods, who plays a newspaper guy.  Lots of unbelievable plot twists, but I didn't really care.

--My spouse and I both agreed that this movie is Dolly at her most physically lovely.  Her personality, lovely as always, blazes through this movie, which made it particularly perfect.

--We are almost at the 2 year anniversary of Hurricane Helene.  Two years ago today, I went down the market to Spartanburg Methodist College, hoping to finish up student conferences.  On my way home, driving through rain that seemed normal, I got a weather alert on my phone, telling me about a flash flood warning, urging me to seek higher ground.  I had just driven across a mountain and assumed the alert was for someone else, since I was in a car on the Interstate (I 26).  A day later, that part of the Interstate would be under water.

--And now there are new houses and apartment buildings being built on that land that flooded.  Maybe it was a hundred year flood, and those structures will be safe.  I am doubtful.

More Thoughts on Housing

ELCA pastor Clint Schnekloth has been doing some interesting thinking and writing about housing and the Church's responsibility in this time of housing lack; this piece about the vacant (not abandoned so much as underused and underutilized) church space is his latest, and this piece has some specific examples of responses by individual churches.

My church is much smaller, both in terms of space and members, than Schnekloth's church in Arkansas.  We have had members who needed temporary housing, which has led me to ponder our own use of space.  We don't have an educational wing/building with unused space.  It would take some radical rethinking to transform any of the rooms below the sanctuary.  It's a country church, with the sanctuary and restrooms on the first floor, and in the basement, a kitchen, a small fellowship hall, two bathrooms (one with a walk-in shower), three classrooms, one storage area, and a pastor's office.

As a very part-time minister who is only at the church on Sunday, I would be happy to give up my office to be a one room sleeping area for someone in crisis, even if the crisis lasts weeks.  But would the person who comes after me be happy with that decision?

And let me also remember that the Church Council has more say in this than I do.  My church in Bristol is amazing in terms of the members being responsible for the vision and the mission.  They've had very temporary pastors for over a decade now.  I don't want to undercut them.

Pumpkin Patch Anniversary

Yesterday was a lovely day to go to apple orchards and pumpkin patches.  I did look for the farm I didn't buy, the farm on the way to the orchard, which I blogged about in this post yesterday.  The house no longer exists, and I'm almost sure that the property has been transformed into a housing development called--wait for it--The Orchards.

I bought 3 types of apples, and I'll report on the writing assignment tomorrow.  I had a vision of buying Pink Ladies, in honor of my grandmother, and because they are so different from grocery store apples.  Similarly, there's a variety called Ginger Goldens which sounds like the Grimes Goldens that my mother-in-law always spoke of wistfully.  But those weren't in yet.  I bought Granny Smith, Ambrosia, and Ludacrisp.

I decided to pop over to the pumpkin patch next door.  They have so much more than pumpkins, both the kind you pick yourself from a giant garden where they grow in the ground (unlike pumpkin patches at a church) or already picked pumpkins, a wide variety.  They also have garden produce, some grown nearby, some not.  There's a refrigerator case with products from a local dairy (or creamery, if you want a prettier name) and with meat raised locally.  They carry all sorts of products in jars:  jams, jellies, all sorts of pickled things.  The stores also has all kinds of gift shop things, like figurines and wall decorations along with some sweatshirts, t-shirts, and hats.

I bought some Cherokee Purple tomatoes at an end of season sale.  I bought 2 pumpkins for the seasonal display I always create at our mailbox.  And I got a free hot apple cider.  The pumpkin patch was celebrating its 7th anniversary, along with the beginning of autumn, and they offered all customers a choice of a free hot apple cider or a free apple slushie. 

As I drove home, I thought about that pumpkin patch that opened in 2019--they survived Covid and the ravages of the remnants of Hurricane Helene that closed the main road for months, along with smaller flooded road incidents.  I thought that I should be the one giving them a cider or a slushie for their dogged endurance.

That hot apple cider was so delicious.  I wound my way home, across back roads that still aren't completely repaired--I know, because I had to go an alternate way because of repairs.  Once I would have had to pull over to have my phone guide me.  Yesterday I was fairly sure I knew where I was going--and I was right.

Here's to 7 more years, pumpkin patch--and 7 more years after that!

Of Apple Farms and Alternate Futures

Later today, I will stop by my favorite apple orchard on the way home.  I will be buying apples today and then again later in October--all for the sake of writing projects for my classes.  Tomorrow my Nonfiction Writing will have 3 kinds of apples, and we'll discuss the kinds of reviews we could write.  Then on Friday, we'll write those reviews.

I have a memory from a past autumn of driving to my favorite orchard and seeing a farm for sale.

This morning, I went back through my blog to find the reference, and I did; this post from September 29, 2011 has this bit:  "I continue to try to convince myself that a farm for sale is not a sign about my life's direction. I'm trying not to think about the proud tradition of poet-farmers in this country. I'm reminding myself that a farming life would leave me too exhausted to write. Too exhausted and broke to boot."

Each time I make the drive, I try to remember which property was for sale, and today will be no different.  But I do wonder if the house that was part of the property has since been torn down. It was looking old and tired 15 years ago:

Fifteen years ago!  I didn't ever call to find out how much the farm would cost, but I assume that even 25 years ago, I couldn't have afforded a 38 acre farm.  It is one of those choices, though, that still intrigues me.

If I see a farm for sale today, on my way to the apple orchard, I might make a different choice.  I would imagine keeping my teaching job in Spartanburg, while also running an apple orchard, while also teaching online classes part-time, while also preaching part-time in Bristol, Tennessee.

And then, I probably would make the same choice I made in 2011.  I would back out of the driveway and try not to look back.

I am so grateful to have arrived to living in this area, even without buying a farm 15 years ago.  If I had bought that farm, I might have missed out on my dream jobs that I have now:  teaching English classes at a small, liberal arts college (a dream job for my whole adult life) and preaching every Sunday at a small, country church (only very recently recognized as a dream job).

Hurricane Anniversaries: Hugo and Beyond

I have spent the last 10 minutes reading a Wikipedia article about Hurricane Hugo.  People who dismiss Wikipedia articles probably haven't read any in the past 20 years--they can be downright scholarly.  I got absorbed in various parts of the history of that storm, when all I really wanted to know is the day and time it came ashore in South Carolina, a more precise day and time than I found in this local news graphic:

The answer to that question:  very early on September 22, which means that on this day in 1989, I'd have been waking up nervous.  In the afternoon, after grad school classes at USC, some of us went to The Fresh Market, where I allowed myself to buy all sorts of treats I wouldn't ordinarily afford, either in terms of costs or calories.  

In the evening, after seeing footage on the local news about Charleston folks seeking refuge in the downtown USC arena, we took a spare blanket or two down to donate.  We were sheltering some refugees ourselves:  my undergraduate friend, Heather, her baby Sam, and her spouse, who had been at her mom's house in Charleston while her mom was away.  We put masking tape on our windows.

And then we waited.

You might ask why we were worried, being so far inland.  But Sumter was also similarly inland, and that town experienced major damage.  But I don't think we even experienced much in the way of  power outages in Columbia.  Our refugees stayed with us a few more days before heading back to help her mom clean up.

We moved to the Lowcountry in 1992, and there was still damage everywhere, from tilted trees to stray wreckage here and there.  Similarly, when we moved to South Florida in 1998, we still saw some leftover damage from Hurricane Andrew.

And here, in North Carolina, there's still lots of damage from Hurricane Helene, the remnants of which came here two years ago--the anniversary is later this week, but it's never far from my mind.

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo seemed like the kind of fearsome storm that would come just once in a lifetime.  Now we get these strong storms much more frequently.

And at some point, we'll look back and see this time period differently--a time when strong storms came, but we had time in between to clean up and rebuild.  Future generations will probably not have that luxury, if they are still living near the coast at all.