Monday, May 21, 2007

Six Things for Six Days til Pentecost

1. I have finished my first year of seminary. They didn't kick me out.

2. I heard Barbara Kingsolver talk Friday night, about her new book "Animal, Vegeatable, Miracle." Local food is a necessary ecological corollary to the coming anarcho-baptist revolution.

3. This week in Chicago, Pentecost is coming with cicadas. Folks at Grace Baptist Church celebrated Pentecost a week early. I was shocked and appalled by this gross violation of the liturgical year, but I am happy to have two chances to celebrate my favorite day of the year. Chicago's 17 Year Cicadas will emerge from the ground, we think, sometime this week. There's something deeply Pentecostal about this, and there is probably a poem in there somewhere: quietly waiting below ground for seventeen years, sucking on tree roots for nourishment, and then all coming out together, and covering everything, and making the loudest insect noise on earth. Like, really loud. There may also be a revolutionary strategy there.

4. According to NPR, no one knows how cicadas know to all come up from underground together, after seventeen years. I believe that cicadas are impelled from their nests through the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Pentecology.

5. Tomorrow morning I leave for two weeks in Nicaragua. I'll be back June 6th, and on June 11th I start my hospital chaplaincy internship. I expect both of these experiences to be deeply challenging and wonderful.

6. I bought a broad-brimmed hat for my trip. It had a tag on it that proudly trumpeted its ability to float. It also featured a warning label "not to be used as a flotation device."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi David and Rachael, I'm going to try this again. I tried the other day and no luck....I guess I need an identity so I'm going to try that too.

Thinking of you both with love in Nicaraugua. First, David, I read your posting about the cicadas and your prep for your trip. Oh my......I must share that Grandma said she and Grandpa had to walk on a bunch of cicadas she remembers at a time in Mamont.

Also, Rachael, I looked and some of your pictures of your home and of the children at Chacocente. Oh my.......prayers and blessings to you.....

Lots of love,
Diane

Anonymous said...

More.........I just want to say that I'm not good at this blog stuff and I goofed the other day but now it looks like my comments were posted. YAY!!!!

I have not found new comments yet from Nicaraugua and adventures posted since David has arrived there but maybe I'm looking in the wrong spot. Hope you are both well and hanging in there okay......

Peace and love,
Diane/Mom

Nathan Dannison said...

David! Good luck in Nicaragua, dude. I will be thinking of you as I happily munch on some braised teneral cicadas with leeks and portobellos.

Bring me a monkey!

-Nate