It's now May, 2021, and it has been quite the year.  With the daily infection rate of Covid-19 dropping plus the vaccinations...it seems like we are now slowly emerging on the other side of this pandemic.  Yes, large scale stupidity remains and unfortunately "stupidity" is an incurable disease. Neighbors of mine...a couple...has decided for whatever stupid reason that they were not going to get vaccinated.  Today, as I am typing this...they are both hospitalized with Covid-19.  

The good news, though, is that my entire family is vaccinated and has emerged from this pandemic whole and healthy.  And for this I am very thankful.

It will be fun to travel once again.  It will be fun to meet friends at a restaurant for lunch or dinner.  It will be fun to be in public without wearing a mask.

​We take it one day at a time...

What more can I say???  CJ is my roommate, my friend, my little buddy and I love him.

As of yesterday I am now fully vaccinated against Covid-19.  This past year has been quite the journey.  The one lesson that stands foremost in my mind is how overwhelmingly stupid the people of this country are (United States)...self-entitled, stupid, white people.   However, I also give 110% credit for those people are there such as Dr. Fauci who are fighting the good fight for the well being all of us...as well as the nurses that stand with us in line as we get our vaccines.  To these good people I give my heartfelt appreciation.

Finally, on this Good Friday, I want to share one of my favorite Jame Dillet Freeman poems:

I AM THERE
Do you need Me ?
I am there.
You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.
I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.
I am at work, though you do not understand My works.
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.
Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me
as I AM, and then but as a feeling and a faith.
Yet I am here. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.
When you need ME, I am there.
Even if you deny Me, I am there.
Even when you feel most alone, I am there.
Even in your fears, I am there.
Even in your pain, I am there.
I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.
I am in you, and you are in Me.
Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for
only in your mind are the mists of "yours" and "mine".
Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.
Empty your heart of empty fears.
When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.
And I AM in all.
Though you may not see the good, good is there, for
I am there. I am there because I have to be, because I AM.
Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of ME does the world go forward.
I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.
I am the love that is the law's fulfilling. I am assurance.
I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by.
I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance.
I am your peace. I am ONE with you. I am.
Though you fail to find ME, I do not fail you.
Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never
wavers, because I know you, because I love you.
Beloved, I AM there.
~James Dillet Freeman

This past Sunday it snowed.  CJ and I spent the afternoon watching movies in front of a warm fireplace.  Well, let my quantify that statement, I watched the movies and he napped.

Sadly, though, Covid-19 marches on.  We are fortunate in that #DiaperDonnie is now gone and is history (hopefully) and we have an adult that is President.  I believe and I have read that Americans have reason to now be cautiously optimistic that life will return to some semblance of "normal" this year.  I've had my first vaccine (Moderna) and the second one is scheduled for early April.

Here are the unnecessarily sad statistics...that cover the period of 3/1/2020 - 3/1/2021:

March, 2020 - 89 cases, 2 deaths
March, 2021 - 28,614,504 cases, 513,393 deaths

These cases and deaths are the sole responsibility of the depraved indifference of #DiaperDonnie and his #republican party.  May they rot in hell.

​

Somehow we have made it through this past year and are now somewhere around the anniversary date of the pandemic.  Here in the United States 500,000 people are now dead due to the prior administration mismanagement.  The number is tragic and it was and is so unnecessary.  I truly am scared about the future of this country.

However, on a brighter note, I am not in line to be scheduled for the first vaccine.  This past Thursday I was "on-call" but also told that if not called in, I would be scheduled for March 3, 2021.  So this is promising news.

And...meanwhile CJ is oblivious as he basks in the sun...

“A cat doesn’t care if you are smart or dumb, give him your heart and he will give you his.”
~Abraham Lincoln

My little buddy will be 12 years old this summer.  We both have grown a little slower as we have aged...as well as mellower.  Daily I am thankful for our comfortable companionship.  Life if filled with many wonderful blessing great and small...and CJ is one of those blessings.

So here we are on this day with nearly 500,000 people dead from Covid-19.  Thankfully the horror of the #republican administration and #Trump are no longer in control of the national dialogue...and we are seeing true leadership.  Vaccines are limited and it is like being in a lottery...one that I seem to be losing at this moment in time.

So masks continue and isolation largely continues.  Are there times when I am bored?  Most definitely.  However, on a daily basis I practice an attitude of gratitude for a warm and comfortable home...and for my little buddy (pictured above).

Because I know and appreciate my cat's companionship during these days, I shall now stop writing and leave with this wonderful quote:

“A meow massages the heart.”   ~Stuart McMillan

When nightly temperatures hover around -30 (F) and daytime high temperatures that do not get above 0 (F), it's a good time to hibernate in front of the fireplace.  While CJ watched the fire that was burning, I caught up on the latest episode of "The Expanse" (Amazon Prime Video).  What better way to spend a cold winter afternoon, eh?

“You can’t ever be a cat owner; in the best of cases it allows you to be their companion.”   ~Harry Swanson

​Whom My Soul Loveth
By James Dillet Freeman

“I will give rise now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the broadways I will seek him whom my soul loveth.”

I have sought God in the streets of the world, in people, and in my own soul. Have I seen God?

I have seen snow falling, the spring green pushing upward, the summer flowers standing tall, the grain yellow lingering on in the autumn fields, the fruit burdening the orchards. I have felt the glory of the Sun. I have heard the feet of the rain running among the leaves. I have listened to the conversation of ancient trees. Night after night I have watched the steadfast stars and ever-changing Moon. The redbird has wakened me, and I have fallen asleep to the crickets' tune. The majesty of mountains, the wonder of the sea, the stretch of valleys, the flight of the sky—all these I have seen.

Are these God? No, but they are the garments of God.

I have felt the wonder of life; its patient experimenting; its outward, upward striving; its eternal unfoldment. I have heard the laughter of children. I have seen the look in a mother's eyes. I have watched lovers strolling hand in hand and heart in heart. I have known men brave enough to die for one another and selfless enough to live for one another. I have felt what a wonderful thing it is to be a human being.

Is this God? No, but it is the personality of God.

I have been alone under the sky when suddenly I was one with all the beauty and wonder and glory of the world. The sky was not high enough to hold my heart. I reached out through all the galaxies and nebulae, the infinite stretches of space, and I knew that they were in me and of me.

I have walked down a street crowded with strangers when suddenly they were not strangers and I felt myself expand and take them in. I felt their loneliest longings, their loftiest aspirations, their hopes and fears, their love and faith and joy. I was the self that transcends self, the larger Self that is not bound by space and time, the Self that knows it is one with the reality in all people.

I have gone into a quiet room, shut the doors of the senses, turned within, and found the peace that passes understanding, the stillness that is the very heart of stillness, the place where there is nothing at all; yet I am one with all that is.

Is this God? No, but it is the presence of God.

Where is God?

Search for God through the crowded city streets. Seek God in the peaceful countryside. Penetrate the nucleus of the atom. Follow the curve of emptiness. Go to the end of time. God will be there. Wherever you are, God is.

Know, you who seek God, that He seeks you more steadfastly. God seeks you. God loves you. God will not leave you alone. You could not walk alone, not for a moment, not in the darkest night. Though you stretched not out your hand, yet your hand would be in God's. Though you held not out your heart, yet God's heart would infold you.

… God is the infinite livingness of life that is in all and through all and under all, ever seeking to express itself.

Some seek to catch God in a net of words, but God is more than word. God is more than any thought that a man's mind can hold, yet God is the least thought that springs there. God is the first cry uttered by a newborn child, yet God is more than all the utterances of all the theologians.

God is more than all thought, all feeling, and all vision. God is the life that reveals that there is no death. God is the love that transforms hate into constructive energy. God is the intelligence that lifts ignorance into an understanding of Himself, of human beings, and of the universe.

O child of God, God is the truth of your own being!