A sense of spring!

Today it was reslly possible to believe in Spring! And looking at the next few days, I think that feeling will be re-enforced. Our snow is almost all gone in the woods. The piles thrown up by the plow are still there, of course, but they are much reduced. Temps will be in the 50s and 60s in the next few days. That will melt even more. I wouldn't be surprised to see little green shoots appearing here and there! We will have a real treat coming up in a couple of days - my granddaughter, Katie Shay, will be coming for a visit, arriving at Bradley Field in Hartford, CT at 2pm in the afternoon on Friday. It will be a short visit - she will return Sunday morning. But we haven't seen her since last summer, and a lot has happened in her life in the meantime. So we need to do a lot of catching up. And what else is going on? We are reading the short stories of Franz Kafka for our Swarthmore Course Uncanny Journeys. Tomorrow we will go to Northhampton to see Tamar in her high school musical, Mama Mia. In the afternoon, at 4:30 tomorrow, UNC will play Marquette in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. I'm not sure how that will fit in with getting to Tamar's musical, but we'll try to either listen to or see at least part of that game. We might be able to go to Katie & Savanna's for the beginnning of it, at least. Or maybe we'll just hang out somewhere in Northhampton and listen on the radio, via my iPhone. Earlier today I picked up Jerome and took him to Hannaford to do some shopping. I took a fifteen minute walk on our driveway after I got back from that. Ellen is shopping at the moment and I just cleaned up the kitchen and did my exercises. I had a zoom session earlier today with retired clergy - Jeff, Catherine, Jack and Roger. We always have a good, lively discussion. Catherine told us about someone she reads regularly - John Pavlovitz - and by some coincidence, just a few minutes later, when I checked in for my Wednesday Chicago Theological Seminary Wednesday noon Reflections, I learned that he is to be the guest speaker next week. Here is just a little bit about him (written in 2017 when Trump was President): Pavlovitz, forty-eight, is a Wake Forest resident, minister at North Raleigh Community Church, and father of two young kids. He's also the writer behind "Stuff that Needs to be Said", a blog that calls out hypocrisy in plain language, with the president and his ardent followers within the religious right earning particular scorn. His style—compassion paired with a no-bullshit, emperor-wears-no-clothes attitude, all informed by an inclusive brand of Christianity—has endeared him to millions of readers. This year alone, twenty-three million people have viewed his blog, and he has over sixty thousand Twitter followers.******************************* So the days are full and it is wonderful to look forward to Spring!

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

John Pavlovitz (1969- )