FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE [T, 5-12-20]

“DAILY” DEVOTIONAL-Trying to Grow in the Spirit

FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE               [T, 5-12-20]

According to Wikipedia, Superman’s “fortress of solitude” appeared first in 1949. I was reading Superman then, when I could, but I don’t recall knowing about his FOS. I preferred Captain Marvel, anyway, so if I had a nickel to spend on a comic book, it usually went to the Captain. I didn’t have many nickels, though, so I usually got my Super Man stories from the radio. Those were free, if you could pay the electric bill.

If I had known about Super Man’s FOS, though, I would have been much in favor of it. I always wanted a space of my own, away from other people [OP], but that was impossible in our farm house. My little brother and I slept together on a pull-out bed in the living room. My clothes shifted around to wherever there was space for them. Every summer, I would get the idea of making a room for myself in the attic. I would have the attic cleaned up very nicely when the first 90 degree 90 humidity day came along, and then I realized how foolhardy that idea was.

           

I never really got that FOS. There were so many OP. I went to college, had a roommate, got married, had a permanent roommate, then children. I didn’t live with church members, but there were a lot of them in my fortress, some as honey bees, some as murder hornets, but either way, it wasn’t solitary.

           

I am only now realizing how important it is to stay away from OP. When the quarantine started, I had several physical pains and problems—back, colon, ears, eyes, skin, big toe, etc. Now that I have been in my own FOS for almost two months, all those problems have disappeared. I thought it was only my mental problems that were caused by OP. Now I realize that it was all my physical problems, too. As long as I stay in my FOS, I’ve got no problems at all.

           

Except for TOP, The Other Person, the other one in my FOS. She keeps talking about how great it will be when we can see OP again.

So I’m falling back to Plan G.

Plan G has always worked. God has always been my real FOS, and a good thing it is, for God is an always available FOS, whether OP are totally absent or all over the place. “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”

JRMcF

As we began to “shelter in place,” some folks spoke of the need in this pandemic time for an online “daily devotional,” some spark to light the spirit. [“It only takes a spark to get a fire going…” One of the favorite camp songs of the teens in my church in the 1990s.]

 So, in addition to writing a 500 word column two or three times a week for Christ In Winter, I started writing a short, 200 word, “devotional” on the in-between days. Nothing fancy, just words to try to help us hear the Word in these strange and frightening times.