May 18, 2020 thought for today: The best way to see divine light is to put out your own candle. English Proverb

I have been “glued” to my computer for most of the day. I took a break to tend to some of my houseplants on their first week of “vacation”. The rest of the time I have been concentrating on getting as far as I can into the preparation of the church bulletin and newsletter.

On the 17th I shot a photo to try to match the title for the challenge “I feel...”. After a couple of shots I came up with this one. I saw the mess I was building up and the thought that “I feel...like I need to organize” hit me so this is the answer to that question.

I have the bulletin ready for the last few plug ins. The newsletter is a different story. With this isolation, finding information to pass on through that communication medium is even more difficult than finding articles for sharing in what use to be “normal” times. I had put out a request for folks to share their pandemic-isolation experiences but there hasn’t been any response. I think I have come up with a way to fill the void. It would be better coming in the sharing of experiences with each other. There are reports in the news of folks around the city, I think I can use my personal synopsis of some of those that may be of interest.

I have had a problem with one of the items I put in each newsletter. There is a problem lining up columns of figures. It looks great in the email but when transferred to other mediums, different computer software and printing, the columns become unaligned. I spent over an hour on that problem alone this morning. I think what I did worked. Now I have to remember the exact steps I took to “fix” it.

There is a meeting scheduled for this evening, the first during/at the end of this odd period of time. I am a bit nervous about attending. It is a group of under ten folks and in a room large enough for separation. They are people, for the most part, who I know and am familiar with their life styles. I have been told that there will be one person there who is not a regular presence so that prompts some thought and concern. It looks like I will be making my final decision just before time for the meeting.

The word today is garden. A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors, Charles Baudelaire. A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, James Russell Lowell.  All my hurts my garden spade can heal, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The poetry of the earth is never dead, John Keats. Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden, Walter Scott. Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle, Francis Cabot Lowell. Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher, William Wordsworth. A modest garden contains, for those who know how to look and to wait, more instruction than a library, Henri Frederic Amiel. The goal of life is living in agreement with nature, Zeno of Elea.  St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. "I would finish hoeing my garden," he replied, Francis of Assisi. In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous, Aristotle. A good garden may have some weeds, Thomas Fuller. My garden is a forest ledge Which older forest s bound; The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, Then plunge to depths profound! Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Today’s challenge is “I did this today”. As I noted earlier, I was busy with the bulletin and newsletter today. It would be hard to form that into a photo so I went with one of the other accomplishments of the day, tending to my house plants.

I was interested in reading this article. When I read the title I figured it may be covering something a lot of us may be feeling. Here is the headline that caught my eye: Transforming into potato among my online meeting fears. A lady had down loaded some “goofy filters” to use during a virtual meeting. As the meeting proceeded she accidentally “turned herself into a potato”, an animated, virtual potato. She was not quite knowledge enough about the technology to turn it off during the whole meeting which made the employees smile. I was thinking from the headline that this article was about people turning to a potato by using technical equipment and television more than usual to reweave boredom. It turns out the article is more about leaning technology and all it's new forms as they come about and how it can be a detriment not to learn it and keep up with the history of invention and it's language. The article related how much influence the technology of today came into play during this pandemic. How not being familiar with it could put a big drag on communication in the time of isolation. There is Zoom, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Google Meet paired with “PINs” to type in, and “lingo” to learn. The writer of the article decided to share some clues as to techie talk. For exampel, Zoom is video conferencing that allows people converse with and view each other live from any and all areas they occupy. Another description:"what does mute yourself mean”, his answer, just keep your mouth shut. So there are some fun ways at looking at new  bright and miraculous inventions. It may  be  true that they can be a headache on the one hand but a life saver on the other.

I am having chicken fries and left over cheesy potatoes for dinner.

Joy