He didn’t want to be in a hospital.  He didn’t want to be in a rehab.  But he’d lost a good amount of his blood through a bladder ailment and had to be injected daily with an antibiotic.  So he said, “Get me out of this Day-Care!”  He was in his eighties, my little brother, and his children did not know what to do with him.

Today my other brother, Sylvan, checked up on him, an arduous task.  My little brother had been reconciled, in a way, to his role in Western Civilization.  He had gotten up in the night and run an errand for one of his fellow detainees (gotten a glass of water?) though he could barely make it to the bathroom himself.  He had admitted to himself that, though locked up in a “Day-Care,” he was a brother of Jesus Christ.

I love the farm stands in the North Fork of Long Island.  Fresh produce they sell, and today I thought I’d have to call the plumber, because of the leek my wife obtained.  (There’s no soup like leek-potato soup.)

There’s little danger of neglecting social distancing.  There aren’t that many people at the farm stands (COVID-19).  But the trouble is when you want to go to the bathroom.  McDonald’s was open for food, but the restrooms were closed.  Luckily there are still wild, uninhabited spaces out there.  I have a shovel in the trunk of the car.

I will say this about the world I was born into: it is interesting.  God certainly played up the variety.  And there are challenges there, too.  May they continue to occupy me as long as I live.

They’re about a quarter inch longer every day, and still a shade of light, sunshine green, chartreuse if you will, and only ten days ago they were buds.  They are slightly different every year; a year ago they looked as if the tree, a red oak, were dying.    But this is God’s gift, known in common parlance as spring, to us mortals, about this time of year.

It happened so fast.  Nature, known for its time consuming growth, is sometimes so fast.  The newborn colt, known as a foal, is on its feet while it is still wet from its birth, and galloping around the corral the next day.  The baby robin is through accompanying a parent on the turf in a matter of days, and is sticking its yellow beak in the dirt for worms.  Who taught them?  Who made the curriculum?  Don’t talk to me about a roll of the dice!

Do you see what I mean by a gift?  Are you enjoying this with me?

Forgiving is sometimes hard to do.  Yet it is one of the key reasons Western Civilization advanced as far as it did.  The Franciscans forgave the indiscretions of the indigenous Indians of California, and went on to establish the various missions.  The Indians in turn forgave the Franciscans their strict, Old World teaching habits, and melded into the white population.  In Europe, after years of warfare following the Reformation, the religions finally realized what they were saying in their common “Our Father.”

It hasn’t happened everywhere.  Northern Ireland is still struggling with that, but it goes to show why it took 2,000 years to get to where we are today.  Other civilizations seem to be more occupied with face, and Communist China may not be as easy a mark as the formerly Christian, Communist Russia.

Despite COVID-19, I’m glad to be living in the 21^st Century.  We see some results.