Musical Garbage, Backward Gifts, Stupid Technology, & Other Odds & Ends [W, 3-15-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—Musical Garbage, Backward Gifts, Stupid Technology, & Other Odds & Ends [W, 3-15-23]

 

We have friends who spend the winter in a small town in Ecuador. They say that the garbage trucks play music as the make their rounds. What a nice idea… as long as they don’t play the same songs as the ice cream trucks.

We have too much stuff, which means we don’t need gifts of stuff for birthdays or other gift-giving days. So our daughters give gifts to refugees as gifts from us. Our church has a ten-person three-generation Syrian family, and one daughter’s church has a three-generation Ukrainian family. Sometimes they make money donations in our name, and if they are able to give hard gifts—a lamb cake pan or a mixer to a grandma who likes to bake—they take photos of them to send to us. Either way, they are gifts that make us happy, and gifts that make happy people who had to flee their homelands with nothing at all.

“The Indiana Daily Student” is the best newspaper in Bloomington. A bunch of college kids, who write well, and are willing to go any place to get a story. They cover not only the IU campus but the city and county, much better than the city paper does. Of course, it its defense, The Herald-Times has been purchased by a chain that has reduced the local staff to one part-time robot. The IDS, however, is half a million in debt, because, to maintain journalistic independence, it is part of the university but receives no financial support. So they’re asking for donations. I was a journalism student when I started at IU, so I wanted to help. Helen tried to send them a contribution via their web site. OMG! You would think a bunch of tech savvy younguns would know how to make it easy to do that. Not so. She finally gave up and sent a check by mail. People who have grown up with technology often don’t realize its purpose is to make things easier, not to show off their tech chops. [They probably don’t know how to deposit a check, either.]

From my poetry journal of 1-14-23 [sa]

MYSTERY

The light shines brightest

when no one sees

The song is loudest

when no one hears

And I still say

the words

 

“Poetry can help us remember what we didn’t know we knew.” Robert Frost

Janet Lennon, of The Lennon Sisters, says that when they were starting out and gaining fame, their father told them, “You will meet a lot of people, and every one of them will be better or worse because they’ve met you.” She said they always tried to take that seriously. But that’s true, even if you’re not a celebrity.

John Robert McFarland