Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II
Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. Heavy, wet, cold. Snow. Still coming down. 10″ so far. Shadow, frozen tennis ball in mouth, racing through the trees at top speed. Radical Roots of Religion. Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Luke and Leo. Beltane. The Lord and the Lady. Greenhouse. Nathan. Colorado Coop and Garden.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: My Furry Alarm
Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut
One brief shining: In a white rental Camry I drove down Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive, feeling the sedan shift and dance a bit on icy roads, no Snow tires, no all wheel drive, controls in unfamiliar locations, made it down to Evergreen talking to Kate, watching the icy rain spill onto the windshield, gather clumps of ice on the windshield washers, and later on I-70 having fast moving trucks throw enough road wash up to blind me. Loads of fun.
Of course, it’s Wednesday. Trash day. And I have 10″ and counting of new late spring Snow on the driveway. This morning my back decided to be very ouchy so I’m not making it outside. Two weeks from now.
That said. Oh, how fortunate are we to get this wet heavy whiteness. Our high risk fire weather conditions need a tamp down and this will be a good resource.
The Mountains in Snow. Beautiful. Treacherous.
In other places: Today the Sistine Chapel, hot off its Hollywood run in Conclave, will fill up with Cardinals, not the I.U. mascot, but plumage adjacent humans complete with a red ruff at the top.
Their task. Elect a pope. A fisher of men. Peter’s successor. Carrier of his keys. The 6th since 1947. My lifetime. I have had a fascination with conclaves and the Supreme Court. Both berobed, both filled with folks appointed for life, both apex institutions in their cultures. Both secretive. Powerful. Both capable of impacting the world.
Over the next few days we will see smoke. Speculation. How long will it take? Impossible to say. I’m interested, as are most, in the type of pope the electors choose.
Will he be a Francis admirer, a Third-World pope of color, or a dour conservative vowing to save Latin and the Tridentine Mass? We’ll know soon enough.
In mussar, the Jewish discipline focused on character building, we talk about changing our behavior so we can change our hearts. The outer affects the inner.
Francis, as I see him, has done the same with the whole Roman church. Instead getting up in his head, as any good Jesuit might be expected to do, Francis visited Africa, Latin America. Often. He blessed LGBT+ folks, embraced the poor, offered himself as an ambassador of peace, spoke out against rapacious economies and politicians alike.
He acted out his character, his personhood shaped by love, not only dogma. My hunch is that he changed the inner heart of the church much more with that approach than had he issued more bulls and encyclicals.
Watch the smoke. I know I will.