Last week kept getting crazier, at least in the world of humans, at least in the Mid-Ohio Valley. The beyond-bad actors of Freedom Industries, those supposedly grown-up frat boys who brought us the Elk River chemical spill, filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to protect their personal assets and asses from being seized. Then the speaker of the US House of Representatives (and just WHAT is he representing, I wonder) claimed that we do not need more regulations--even though in West Virginia, there are no laws mandating inspection of chemical storage facilities, and there is no online database of the number or locations of such places because paper permits are still filed. (I am not making this up. Google "number of chemical storage facilities in West Virginia." You won't get an answer.) Bringing back the guillotine has felt like a good idea--except that I don't like blood, and guillotines are known to be messy, and violent revolutions frequently have ugly consequences. So--cancel that idea.
At least, real life goes on, generally ignoring humans and what we want and do. This week brought wrens and titmice and cardinals in abundance, even a male goldfinch with traces of his glorious breeding plumage cheering a dark day.
Then, last night brought snow, and while I have to drive in it this morning because it's my week to give the welcome and read the announcements at church and I HATE driving in snow, sometimes a good coating of the white stuff makes everything seem better.
This is one of those times.
Thanks, Wendell Berry, for the
poem that gave me this morning's title. Sometimes we need to be reminded that
our world is not
the world.
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