Changing a Little Equation
(Note: I consulted no math book to double check my assumptions about my life’s little equation,— only for the “art.” )
A grim statistic is changing my life’s little equation:
Covid deaths in the USA have reached 1,000,000.
COVID is spiking again in Maryland. I figure it is now a new factor, or constant, in my life’s little equation.
The virus and its variants factor into several daily decisions, and multiplies angst.
Sometimes it’s a positive — a handy out when I want to stay in. Other times it’s a depressing negative — canceling parties or outings.
I just hope its value will quickly drop to zero . . . but I suspect that pandemics are an unknown we will be solving for awhile longer than we want.
Other Factors
So many factors in my little life’s equation — what times me equals a good day?
What factors divide me — diminish me —?
No, I will not rehearse “factors”— especially the unexpected factors of the past two years . . .
Suffice it to say:
Emotions can have exponential powers especially when unknowns show up in my life’s equation.
Some days — most days — well . . . I have to stick with the equation:
God did not die and leave me in charge
of solving anybody else’s tricky equations.
How-some-ever, He did show me how I can remove myself for complications others people’s equations:
Continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong, promptly admit it.
My hope and confidence is that God isn’t grading me on how I solve my life’s little equation.
He remembers my “limitations” — because He’s the one who formed me, knowing me from before time.
As with every child . . . planned or unplanned.
Oh God, Help your church — me — do the right thing in this crazy world — and serve with love the hurting hearts. *
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
T’ is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
William Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
- FYI: Peggy Noonan’s helpful words on The End of Roe v Wade that may be in sight.
PS — Keep Ukraine in your prayers —
There are so many unknowns in solving this problem —