March 17, 2020

Blessed St. Patrick.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Online department meeting, where we were all very much ourselves, and where we agreed that the semester is, essentially, over. I face the fact that there will not be for me the retirement reception that there has been for every other faculty member in the department. I will disappear like a ghost, unhonored and unnoted. I sort of assumed that would happen, though I did not foresee this particular circumstance.  Ah, well to 37 years.

Attacked wild honeysuckle and bamboo in the garden, extracting a bamboo runner twelve feel long and as thick as my thumb. Satisfaction as it pulled inch by inch out of the soil. Heavy rain came to settle in my pear and my roses. The pear that I thought was dead stands covered with buds, so there is an extra rather than a replacement. Unexpected blessing. Tiny blue flowers everywhere just above the dirt.