The Lion and the Lamb

"March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb."

We've all lived through enough years by now to know exactly how March works.  Totally unpredictable except for knowing there's always in it a lion and a lamb.  Both.

No one knew, of course, that this year's lion would roar so voraciously, taking the entire world by storm.  The unforgiving lion of winter.

Now that the lamb has gingerly entered the scene, I wonder if the lion will lie down and cry "Uncle!"  Surely he knows he's been defeated.  Surely he knows the havoc he's wreaked will be relegated to the history books and photographers' blogs.  Will he gain any satisfaction in that, I wonder?  Or will he whimper away with his tail between his legs.

The 'liddle lamzy divey' could hardly wield that kind of power, right?!  Make the lion cry "Uncle?"  Are you kidding me?

In his Marriage of Heaven and Hell, I wonder what English poet William Blake meant when he said "The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God"?  Surely it's a bit simplistic to say something good will come out of an earth shaken loose on its axis.  That there's a reason for everything.  That a phoenix with arise from these ashes.

Let's say, as does the ancient writ, the lion does not whimper away but lies down with the lamb.  That the two reconcile and enjoy a marriage of sorts.  An understanding.  I'll do the roaring and you'll do the 'lambing.'  I'll wreak havoc and you'll clean it up.  I'll take life and you'll give it.  Death and resurrection.

I have no clue how these things work.  Several years ago, shortly after my divorce, a fire in my condo building the week before Christmas destroyed all the units and rendered us all homeless...we thought.  The Red Cross was Johnny on the spot, as were our insurance companies, quickly getting us housed, clothed and situated during the next 6 months of rebuilding.  How it happened, I can't explain, but after all was said and done, I was in a better situation than before.  I lost a lot, yes, but gained even more.

The wrath of the lion.  The wisdom of God.

When there are no answers to the Why's, do we give up?  No.  A few days ago Kath said we dare to hope.  And why don't we give up?  Why do we hope?  Because we know every March has a lion and a lamb.  We have lived long enough...we don't even question it any more.  As surely as there is death, there is resurrection.

Soon after the lion roars, the newborn lamb wobbles to life.  It's like an Eternal Spring lives inside our collective psyche.  And here it is now before us.  Spring has sprung!

A Little Good News

Back in my early memories of "the news" in high school, what I most remember was listening to Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News with Mom and Dad, sitting in the living room around the TV.  Religiously.  Every evening.  Years later, when Dan Rather took his place, we all lamented that no one could ever replace Walter Cronkite.

I don't remember when I switched to ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, but it was soon after reading that ABC's coverage was supposedly "less conservative."  That caught my ear, so I switched...until he died in 2005 at age 67, of lung cancer.  [My dad also died of lung cancer but hadn't smoked a day in his life.]  Wiki says Jennings "was known for his ability to calmly portray events as they were happening...."

But what I liked most about Jennings, to be honest, was how he invariably would end the evening with a positive, touching, up-beat, inspirational, people-story.  It helped you forget about all the bad stuff you had just heard.  It actually gave you hope for a world not going to hell in a hand basket.

Today I live in a country whose language is still not 'mine' enough for the local news.  I rely on CNN Int'l in English to help me keep tabs on the world as we know it today.  What's happening now in the Middle East steals the show, of course.  Did any of us believe the Egypt fiasco would end with some semblance of Victory?  And what about Libya?

To get the full impact of this post today, and if you would indulge me, I'd love you to click on the following YouTube link and listen to Anne Murray sing the following:

A Little Good News

Little Good News (1983)
I rolled out this morning...kids had the morning news show on
Bryant Gumbel was talking about the fighting in Lebanon
Some senator was squawking about the bad economy
It's gonna get worse you see we need a change in policy

There's a local paper rolled up in a rubber band
One more sad story's one more than I can stand
Just once, how I'd like to see the headline say
Not much to print today can't find nothing bad to say

Because...

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD'd, nobody burned a single building down
Nobody fired a shot in anger...nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today

I'll come home this evening...I'll bet that the news will be the same
Somebody takes a hostage...somebody steals a plane
How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair
And how we cleaned up the air...how everybody learned to care

Whoa, tell me...

Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today
And in the streets of Ireland all the children had to do was play
And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA
We sure could use a little good news today

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD'd, nobody burned a single building down
Nobody fired a shot in anger...nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today.

Astrid and I often dance to this song from 1983, as though dancing it will make a difference in 2011.  When we get to Nobody was assassinated...and Nobody had to die in vain...something happens inside of me.  It's like I hear another feel-good Jennings' story.  And I smile.

A little good news goes a long way, doesn't it!

The Time of Our Lives

Don't ask me how we'll ever top this one, but for our first wedding anniversary on the recent 5 February weekend, Astrid reserved a floor of this windmill B&B.  See that middle window just under the platflorm?  That was our Bed part of the B&B, a full-fledged apartment.  With gale-force 'Level 8' winds swirling around us all night, 39-46 mph, we slept like babies.   See the window below us on the ground floor?  That was the Breakfast part of the B&B the next morning.

When Astrid first Googled, she discovered The Netherlands has only two such B&B windmills.  She picked this one in Onderdendam, in the NE of the country, 125 miles from home.  It can't be compared to anything else we've done thus far.  We had the time of our lives!

That got me thinking about the phrase, 'the time of our lives.'  In the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, one of my favorites of all time, it was "I've never felt this way before."  That's the first thing I think of.  A FEELING.  Sure, it's a feeling often based on what you're doing but I'm guessing some have stayed in that same B&B and didn't have the time of their lives.  Not like we did.  So why did WE?  What makes something be the time of our lives?

I have a feeling it's more than what we check off our Bucket List or the Create-a-Wish thing we choose if there's only one wish left to be granted us.  It may not be something grandiose or hugely spectacular or at some exotic location.  It may be something as simple as playing golf on the pro-circuit course of Atlanta, as wished by an elderly lady when I worked in assisted-living years ago.  She got her wish and had the time of her life.  Why?  Because she used to play golf a lot as a young woman and just hankered to play again, even if only putting around on the warm-up green alongside the course.

Some things are just deep inside the chambers of our souls.  Where they came from and how they got there we may never know.  Windmills, for instance.  It's like I lived inside one in a past life.  How else do you explain it?  And when did I know they were there?  How was it that I 'recognized' them when I first came to this country of windmills, as though I always had known them?

When I Googled the phrase ('time of our lives'), I read about our internal, biological clocks...always ticking.  Always knowing.  About how we gain reconciliation with time like a valuable commodity. About the perspective we live it...in the past, the present, or the future.  About how we spend our days doing, feeling, hoping, and what controls our time.  How do we juggle our work and leisure, for instance?  How do we feel time?  How do we age?

Now throw this in:  staying in the windmill was a special experience for Astrid but she said it was planning the joy for me and seeing it on my face that gave her the time of her life.  She knows what's in the deep chambers of my soul and she recognized it when she saw it on my face!  Of course, it wouldn't have been the same for me without her.

And that raises the question:  can we have the time of our life alone, without someone else?  I would guess, so, yes...like the golfer.  But how can you beat sharing it with someone else.  Especially when the wind is blowing! 

Visual Realities

This may be a first (?), two Vision & Verb collaborators meeting each other in real life.  Not Kath and Margie, of course, because they're sisters and that doesn't count!

We're both here in this image, in case you wondered.  She, Petra, is reflecting on her own photography and I'm there in the background, reflecting on her.

Isn't this fun!  Petra told us about her photography exhibition near her hometown here in Holland, about 35 km. from where we live.  We have wanted to meet each other since forever, so why not now.  Just do it.  Besides, Astrid and I knew we could make a photo-hunt day of it, which we did a week ago Saturday.  It was cold but sunny.

That same evening, once we got home, we sat in our nearby movie theater (something we do maybe 4 times a year) and watched teenagers and young adults playing with their iPhones before the movie started...gaming and texting.  Couldn't help but comment about the different world our kids live in today, much of which is virtual.  My 10-year-old grandson would much rather play with his hand-held virtual toys than ride a bike, for God's sake!

But here's the thing.  Remember when we used to write long, snail-mail letters and had to wait days before getting a response?  How many of us do that anymore!  When Dad was dying in 1995, we 8 kids around the state/country did most of our communicating via the phone.  Two years later, when Mom was dying, we were all using the internet, keeping up via e-mail several times a day.  Today we also IM each other and Skype.  All forms of virtual reality.

How many times have we said in Blogosphere that our virtual friends...the ones we've never met in real life...are every bit as real to us, if not more so, than our families and friends.  We may even feel more understood and loved by them...to the point that we we choose them to be our 'real' family.  After all, they know only the bits we want them to know...and are therefore more forgiving.

In my 6 years of blogging on 3 different blogs, including this one, I have met in real life close to 50 bloggers, not counting family and friends.  A handful of them I never see or hear from anymore, and to be honest, a couple of them were not anything like I had created them to be in my mind.  Most of you know that Astrid is my wife today because I first met her on my photoblog.  After 3 months of daily e-mail contact, I met her in real life.  Would she be anything like what I thought she would be?  OMG!  The minute I stepped off the train that first day, it was like lightning struck.  The virtual reality we both had created was in fact...real.

Which leads to this question:  how do we view reality these days?  Apart from the creepy, scary internet stories we dread and the paranoia we might have about divulging our identity, do we gain more than we lose by our blogging realities?  Do you want to meet your blogging family in real life, or does it scare you? Do you trust your judgment of people enough to want to meet them?  I'm guessing we'd all say a hearty YES.  So we're downright lucky when it happens.

In two months Astrid and I will fly to Oslo to meet two of my longest blogger friends, along with their wives.  With Petra, that will make 3 virtual friends this year already, and counting.  Maybe you'll be next.  Isn't that fun!  I love it.