Marge and the Rainy Sunday Night

 

            Mid-quarter. Classes tomorrow. Marge sighed heavily.
            She was sitting on the narrow hard bed in her rented room. Her heavy brown hair was loose on her shoulders, and she was wearing a yellow flannel nightgown printed in juvenile motifs, for the fun of it. She looked down at her knees and frowned thoughtfully.
            It didn’t seem right.
            “I don’t really belong here,” she told the room, listening to her own voice.
            She thought of her friend, Twigg, then she smiled. She enjoyed thinking of what her classmates would say if they knew her secret.
            There was a vertical slice of shiny black window glass where the curtains parted. In the middle distance were street lights and a few other lit objects and signs. Inside the room there was a simple small table and a chair. Her laptop and phone lay on the table next to a cheap lamp. Its cylindrical shade glowed dully She looked around the room, surveying her belongings. There wasn’t much and she kept it that way. The greatest bulk of it, besides some clothing, was her supplies for art classes.
            A bathroom shared by three other female students was down the hall.
            “I need to get out of here,” she said to the walls. The walls didn’t argue against it.
            Eventually Marge lay down and covered up and went to sleep with her lamp still switched on.
            During the night she dreamed of the forest. In the dream she walked a path between first growth giants. The air was complex with bird calls, insect voices, and subliminal influences. A scent rose from the forest floor, ancient, known, speaking of both birth and death, decay and newness. A fungal note to it, but also a resinous backnote.
            As  she walked she touched ferns, salal, huckleberry foliage. She laid her hands on fir bark and stood listening. Yes, there was something there.
            There was a wind too. It turned things this way and that, as if to say, “look here!” She didn’t know the names of the flowers she saw, but they gazed up at her trustingly, vulnerably.
            Further along, a mountain cat paced before her. Before turning around a bend in the trail, the cat turned and looked at Marge with wise yellow eyes.
            She began to think that she was actually there to meet Twigg, but he was being hard to find.
            Suddenly a huge black raven drifted through the atmosphere between the trunk and vanished.
            She awoke with a sharp intake of breath. When she realized where she was, she cried.
            That didn’t last long. Marge was a decisive girl.
            She grabbed her phone and called Enid, her mother, who was paying for everything, tuition, food, rent, supplies and gas.
            “Mom, this isn’t working. I have to do something else,” she told her mother.
            “You woke me at 5AM to tell me you’re dropping out?” said Enid.
            “Not just dropping out. I want to work in the forest, maybe be a forest ranger or something,” said Marge, expecting trouble.
            “Look, before you do anything, you’d better do a lot of research. I’m not sure art majors are a natural for the forest service. I mean, think about it. They want science types,” said Enid.
            “I will, don’t worry, Mom,” said Marge, already opening and waking her computer.
            A lot of research is what she did, and she found out that Enid was correct about becoming a ranger, but that there were volunteer jobs, that paid less money, but enough, and that volunteer programs could lead to ranger positions, possibly. She could do trail maintenance, or host a camp. The more she looked into it, the better she liked it. The information she found online suggested that she go to a Forest Service ranger station and talk to the ranger about volunteering.
            Saturday coming up was her usual date to visit Twigg.
            She worked her way through the week’s classes, as she normally did.
            Saturday morning came. She needed to talk to Twigg and maybe even Ralph, before blowing her whole deal out of the water.

🍃

Just One Of Those Bubbly Open Threads

 A glorious day to you all!

With hearts as light as bubbles.

🤍

The Most Essential Thing A Believer in Jesus Can Do

 

By our dear friend, Babbazee

The most important thing a Jew can do 
(Also, any believer in Jesus, too!) 

according to the biblical covenant

 is  TOV* (literally in Hebrew  "good")

TOV means acts of  loving kindness,

 doing "good"

but it also means much more than just acts of loving kindness 

or doing good

 because Hebrew is a deep language

and the context around a word shades a word's meaning in situ

apparently if we read Genesis correctly 

the entire reason for our existence

 is to do TOV,

 God makes us a speaking (generative) presence 

created in his image

 to carry out this TOV on the earth. 

So if like Jesus I want to be a good Jew and do TOV in the world, 

which is what "serving God" actually means,

what does that mean? what can I do? 

Jesus said his only command is "love " (John 13)

which has been interpreted collectively as weak willed performance art, 

a hippy dippy flower trip, 

something so shallow self centered, full of Satan and tied to sexuality

 that even Charlie Manson's girls were dead into LOVE...

whereas the reality is that what Jesus was commanding 

was the hardest and most impossible thing we could possibly try to do. 

TOV,  good, kindness, love.... even when they are nailing you to a tree,

 stoning you to death in the street, throwing you in the ovens.

 Do TOV said Jesus regardless of what they do. 

He also said if we enter a place 

where the people are so immune to TOV that you can make no dent

you should shake the sand from your sandals and split, (Matthew 10)

further he told us only those who have endurance can accomplish this TOV doing

https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Enduring

Other than that, he never offered any other solution or instruction. 

No revolutionary plan, no practical guideline,

 no government policies or social services,  

no political or secular solution.

 Just TOV. Go do TOV.  And endure to the end.

So we go.

And there's the Ha Satan, (literally translates from Hebrew as THE ADVESARY)

Satan! our old friend, the author of almost everything we "love", 

deeply woven into everything earthly surrounding us, 

sympathy for the devil if you please... 

We do sympathize, we love him, we don't even know we love him, 

today more that ever he is an all encompassing presence in our daily lives 

so fully integrated as to go unnoticed. Our silent partner. 

Our groomer, our abuser. 

Our "Love" is full of the Ha Satan. 

How to do TOV then 

when we have been groomed to be the lovers of Ha Satan

 and are completely immersed in his world?

How to do TOV when we don't even know what TOV is?

You are surrounded in life by people that you "love"

 and that ostensibly  "love" you. 

Husbands, wives, parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends. 

They all say they love you

 and they believe that they love you. 

You say you love them, and believe you love them too.

 Proof or expressions of that love 

are largely tied up in appearances

and the acquisition of "things",  emotional or material

 which the lover and the loved each respectively perceive as "expected"

But that love is not the TOV, not the "love" that Jesus commanded us to do.

That love is full of the SELF, full of conditions and needs,

full of distorted expectations, 

full of shit.

How to do TOV at all then,

as unwilling unconscious lovers of  Ha Satan ourselves,

among the unwitting and willing lovers of Ha Satan 

who will not thank us for our TOV 

no, they will eat our TOV, spit it out in our faces 

and then nail us to the nearest tree.

It's impossible. 

But we have to try. It's the only direction we have been given.

We can not do it out of our own powers, 

which is where the negating of self thing comes in.

It has to be done outside of ego, intellect and our own needs

 therefore it has to be done by retracting our "selves" enough

 to allow God's presence a path through to do it for us. (Isaiah 35) 

Then it becomes easy....

"My Yoke is Light" (Matthew 11)

This is not my power,

this is the power of my God (Genesis 41)

The kabbalistic interpretation 

of the begininng of the universe is called "Tzim Tzum"

It is a retraction.

The idea is that there is GOD and nothing else.  

GOD retracts a portion of himself

 in order to clear a space

 for the existence of the universe

"The kingdom of heaven is within" (Luke 17)

Likewise 

made in his image

we must retract a portion of ourselves in order to do TOV .

*TOV is pronounced with a long O.

A Purrsday Open Thread for November 13, 2025

 

A Kitty’s Kiss

 

Is a little sniff.

And lighter than this,

A swipe of his lips and teeth,

Across my hand.

The purring too,

Surely.

🌸

Marc, The Butter-Loving Cat

 

As told by Suzy

            Once, before our time, there was a certain little house made of stones and wood. It was like a fairytale cottage of the best type. The little house was situated at the entry to a wild and deep forest. The forest was seldom entered by man or man’s companion animals. It was too forbidding. Just like the forests in all the fairytales, the thorns must have been two whole inches long. If one insisted on entering this forest, all sound became muffled. The air was still, stifling.
            Besides Sofie, in this house lived a cat. He was one of those famous butter-colored toms. His name was Marc. He was a lover of butter, as a purely sane fellow. That’s where the old lady who also lived in the house comes into this story. Many cats are provided with a saucer of cream in the morning. It’s true! However, this old lady made and sold butter, since she possessed two adorable doe-eyed light brownish cows, Elsa and Helga.
            Marc received a pat of butter each morning, before going out to hunt. Not only did Marc keep Elsa and Helga’s barn clear of mice, but he also crept into the dark deep forest looking for better prey. Sometimes a rabbit, sometimes a serpent. If he caught a big rabbit he brought it home to Sophie to cook for both of them.
            As you can imagine, once Marc had eaten his butter and licked the little green glass saucer clean, he thanked Sofie and slipped out of the daytime cat door. At night it was closed, so Marc did have to be home before night.
            Anyhow, he went out to hunt. First the barn. No mice scurried before him. Clear.
            So Marc set out to enter the dark forest, by a certain little tunnel he had built through the bottom of the thorny vines. First he flushed out a robin. No dealing with that. Then he was insulted by a pair of noisy crows. He ignored them.
            “Get to the point of the story, Suzy,” I said.
            “OK, here goes,” she said.
            Leaving the crows behind, Marc paced deeper and deeper into the forest. Presently, as they used to say, he came to a huge old grampa of a tree. Perhaps it was a cedar. They are special anyhow. Down near its roots was a rather obscure looking opening, like some animal’s home burrow. Marc felt that he had never seen it before. He was intrigued.
            As he was considering whether he had indeed never seen this burrow before, someone popped out of it. Marc sat back on his haunches and wrapped his long yellow tail around himself.
            Oh, you know the type of creature it was. He was about the size of a big rabbit, but upright in carriage like a man. Like all the folk of his breed, he looked wise and cruel and crafty. His skin was the color of forest loam, as was his little knitted tunic. His feet were too big for his body and bare. His eyes were black as currants, but a lot more shiny. His grey hair was plaited into two braids which hung forward over his little shoulders. Likewise he had a long grey beard, braided in one long plait. He smiled at Marc.

 

Hello, well met, Marc.
Yes I know your name!
Come with me!
Down in earth below,
I have the finest butter a cat could wish for!
All for you!

 

            Marc laughed, thinking of Sofie and Elsa and Helga and the green glass saucer.

 

Oh, Levon. Yes I know your name!

I see that you think me simple.
Not so!
May God confound you!
I’ll not go below.

 

            The little fellow screamed a scream of dinner thwarted and frustration, turned on his gnarly little heel and vanished into his burrow, which vanished likewise behind him.

            “I didn’t think I had seen this hole before,” said wise Marc, the butter-loving cat.

            On the way home after all of that he caught a mole and had it for his supper. He arrived home long before dark, entering the cat door in Sophie’s door and took a lovely nap in front of her little blue enameled stove. Later, Sophie shared her chicken stew with him, then she put the plank over the cat door, so no creatures could creep in during the night.

The End

 

            “That’s a pretty good story, Suzy. I didn’t know you had it in you,” I said.

            “Thanks,” said Suzy with a smile and in a little creaky voice.

            “By the way, how did Marc know the faery’s name,” I wondered.

            “The crows told him he better look out for Levon,” she said. “They were rudely teasing him.”

            “And how did Levon know Marc’s name,” I said.

            “Snooping at windows, hanging around Sophie’s barn,” said Suzy.

            “Well, that ties it all up into a neat bow!” I said.

 

That’s The Real End

😸

Riches and No Fame

 

            The night after the harrowing of Gary and Jim, Ralph and Hector slept rough again, old style, around the fire, which tended to always be burning. In Forest Men’s historical terms, a fire was actually a luxury. They didn’t need it, but they sure liked it.
            Blue, the wolf cub, liked to sleep outside, so she left Cherry with Ramona and slept by the fire too. Wolves crave cold.
            “Hi, Blue,” Ralph said when he woke. He noogied her between the ears and sat up thoughtfully. He was thinking about those two rifles up on the high shelf in the cave with Ramona and Cherry, not to mention the cats. He wanted to be rid of them as quickly as possible. A frown creased his normally unfurrowed brow for only a moment.
            It was a little early for Ramona to be up and about. Fall days were really getting short too.
            “Hector,” said Ralph. “How about we go see Ranger Rick. I want to take him those rifles. Those guys can’t go to the law, or come around looking for them because they were breaking their own laws. By the time I explain the situation, Rick will know to be on the lookout for poachers anyhow.”
            Hector’s eyes opened. He looked a little startled to see where he was, but he remembered and smiled.
            “Those two, Ralph! Like a couple of bad badgers with guns and beer!” grinned Hector, sitting up cross legged like Ralph. “I guess I’ll find out who Ranger Rick is.”
            Ralph got up, all 9 expansive feet of him, and stretched. He put enough fuel on the fire to keep it going for a while. Then he went into the cave to see Ramona and get the rifles.
            “Mona, Hector and I are going to go see Rick. I want to leave these things with him. If he doesn’t want them he can sell them or something. I think we’ll take Blue along, since Cherry is still sleeping.”
            “OK, Baby,” said Ramona from her snuggly nest in the big quilt.
            “Twigg, keep an eye on things for a while, OK?” he said to his son who also woke.
            “I will,” said Twigg agreeably.
            Outside again, after quietly closing the clever green door, Ralph grabbed the bag of beer cans that Gary and Jim had dumped in the forest. He had the rifles in his right hand and the bag in his left.
            “You want to come along, Blue?” he asked the wolf girl, and she agreed that she would like to come along.
            “With luck, Hector, Rick will be making coffee or having his trainee do it, and he might even have something interesting to eat!” said Ralph.
            Secretly, Ralph was hopeful that showing up with Hector wouldn’t make Dexter faint again.
            The path over to the Ranger Station is maybe a couple of blocks in length, not far, but far enough. When they got to the dumpster at the edge of the parking lot, Ralph got rid of the bag of cans. He was pleased to see that Rick’s National Forest truck was parked nearby. He touched the hood. It was warm, so he hadn’t been there a long time.
            Ralph knocked on the office door, opened it, and stuck his head in, while ducking enough to get through.
            “Rick! Are you in here? I need to talk to you!” said Ralph.
            “Good timing, Ralph,” said Rick from the kitchen nook, “I’m just making coffee.”
            “Make a lot, I brought company!” said Ralph.
            Ralph and Hector came in all the way and Rick peeked out of the nook. His eyebrows went up, when he saw Hector and Blue, and he went back into the kitchen.
            Ralph took his big chair and Hector sat on the regular chair, hoping that it would survive his weight. Ralph laid the two rifles on Rick’s desk and they waited for a few minutes. Blue sat by Ralph’s feet very politely.
            “Dexter isn’t here yet,” Rick called from the kitchen area. “I hope he doesn’t miss this!”
            Rick came out with a tray with three cups of steaming coffee a couple of minutes later. He also had a big bakery box of doughnuts, mixed variety flavors. He put the tray down on the desk and took a silent second or two to look at the rifles.
            “OK, Ralph. What’s the story?” said Rick, while passing out cups of coffee and removing the lid from the box of doughnuts. Fortunately, Rick had purchased two dozen doughnuts!
            “Well, in a nutshell, Rick, we discovered two poachers drinking beer and shooting out across the river yesterday. Also, in the same nutshell, Hector here, my cousin by the way, say hi to Rick Hector. Hector here was riding his moose, Hugo, harmlessly through the forest and one of these critters wounded Hugo, who is up in the meadow recovering.
            “Hector and I felt that it was our duty to discourage those two. They have names, but only first names, Gary and Jim, if that helps. We discouraged them so well that they dropped their weapons in their eagerness to escape! They also left beer cans, which are in your dumpster," said Ralph.
            “I’ll just bet you discouraged them,” said Rick, smiling at the picture in his mind.
            “Yeah, I did the old horrible smell thing. Hector showered them with orbs, and then I did the old boulders coming to get you thing. We weren’t visible of course. I bet they think the forest is haunted,” giggled Ralph.
            “So. These are poacher’s rifles, eh?” said Ranger Rick, more seriously.
            “Yeah, we don’t want them,” said Ralph. “I thought maybe you would, or you could sell them or something.” All three of them enjoyed that idea for a moment.
            At that very instant, trainee Dexter popped in the door. He didn’t scream or faint, but he looked pretty surprised.
            “Hey, Dexter, we have company. You’ll have to go get another chair out of the back room,” said Rick, by way of steadying his trainee. “You know Ralph, of course. Hector here is his cousin, and the wolf is a wolf, I guess. Does she have a name, Ralph?”
            “Her name is Blue,” said Ralph. “I should have said.”
            “Good morning, Ralph and Hector and Blue,” said Dexter. “I’ve never gotten to meet a wolf close up! May I pet her?"

            "Of course, she's friendly," said Ralph.
            Then they had to tell Dexter the story of the two poachers and how there came to be two rifles on Rick’s desk.             Dexter also thought the two had gotten what they deserved, but it was too bad they couldn’t really turn them in since they had escaped safely.
            Dexter was actually a very nice young man, just a tad flighty, but he would be OK. He handled the sudden meeting with Hector and Blue in addition to Ralph pretty well.
            Between the four of them, and Blue, they ate all 24 doughnuts and drank two pots of coffee.
            “You know, Ralph, the National Forest owes you a reward. But, I can’t admit you are here to reward,” said Rick. “I would like to personally thank you, and even reward you with something, if there was something that would make sense to you around here.”
            “The doughnuts were pretty good, Rick. I can’t think of anything that I need. I pretty much have everything a guy could want out there in the Home Clearing,” said Ralph. “It was just fun for us.”
            “Would Ramona like anything I have around here?” said Rick hopefully.
            “Well, she really likes lighters. It makes making all those fires a lot easier,” admitted Ralph.
            “Done!” said Rick. “I have a package of new ones. I make fires, and smoke some too.”
            Rick went back into his storage area and came back with the package of new lighters, but also a nice shovel, and a small bow saw.
            “While I was back there I saw this shovel and saw and wondered if you could use them,” said Rick.
            “Maybe so, Rick! Maybe so!” said Ralph. “But don’t you need them?”
            “Oh, I can get more. No problem,” said Rick. “I don’t guess I’ll put those rifles in the lost and found. I’ll check around and see if anybody I know wants one of them, I’ll keep the better one.
            “I hope Hugo recovers from his wound soon, too,” said Rick to Hector. “I didn’t know anyone rode moose!”
            “Mostly they don’t,” said Hector, “But Hugo and I have been friends since he was little, so it works out OK.”
            “Thanks for the doughnuts and coffee,” said Ralph. “We better go see what Ramona is making for breakfast now!” He was patting his tummy thoughtfully.
            “You guys are welcome, come on over any time,” said Rick.
            So, Ralph, carrying the shovel and the saw, and Hector and Blue slipped out of the office door and vanished down the path to the Home Clearing. Ralph was already thinking about experimenting with his new tools, and he was a bit hungry.

🍩

It Was That Regulation Dark and Stormy Night

 

            Ruell was a dreamer of dreams, riding a black Harley-Davidson Sprint. He was often a sleepy man, and he was very sleepy as he rode home after a second shift.
            The sky was low, cloudy, reflecting some of the light of the city. It had started to rain again. The wind was blowing from the north, gusting to maybe 25 mph, not a super impediment, but noticeable. He rode into the wind, hoping that it would keep him awake.
            The temperature was barely 40 degrees. It was late November. A cold wet fall that year.
            Ruell tried to keep his mind on the freeway. He tried not to let thoughts of home, warmth, food and bed distract him from vigilance. The point was to reach that destination in one piece, not die dreaming of it.
            Driving the freeway was still a mild pleasure in those days. The traffic was light, and a person could travel across counties from city to small towns in very short periods of time. It was still a novelty. He was riding the motorcycle because it was fun, though he said it was to save on gas.
            The wind, or discipline, did keep him awake. He made the freeway exit nearest home in good order. The rain was coming down harder now. It bounced off of his bike, his jacket, his legs and his gloved hands like there was a core of ice in each drop. It was colder too.
            He had maybe ten more miles before home. Very few street lights illuminated the rest of the journey. Just one at an intersection or two. His headlight poked a yellow finger into the dark wetness of the country road. He was putting along at maybe 30 on the straightaways and less on the curves. There was one 45degree corner with a high chain link fence on one side of the angle, the one he was facing as he came toward it, still a couple of blocks away.
            So far, so good.
            But then, the planet shifted or something. Maybe something opened and slammed shut again.  Maybe he was dreaming, they always say that, don’t they, the audience, when the story is told. The friend of one’s bosom will likely say it.
            He was preparing to make the righthand corner when something intangible, iridescent, but impossibly dark and heart-stoppingly huge moved suddenly in his peripheral vision. It stole all of his attention. His right hand twisted the throttle reflexively and Ruell, father of four and serious citizen of the land, rode his Harley-Davidson right into that chain link fence at, let’s say 40mph.
            His helmet saved his head. It didn’t help his wrist. The bike made a dent in the fence, the bike fell to the side, and the rider fell into the ditch.  He lay still.
            He felt his heart beating. He noticed that he was breathing. He considered his legs. They seemed to be intact, no pain there. Nothing anywhere else until he got to his left wrist. That was beginning to hurt, the way things hurt when a bone is displaced, or cracked. He was still stunned so he lay there trying to remember what had startled him. His mind veered away from a memory.     

            “Oh,” he thought, “I finally did it. I went to sleep on this bike!”
            Of course, there were no cell phones back then, and in his situation there was no phone booth, and no one knew where he was, and they had no way of knowing what had happened to him. He was on his own, with one useful hand. He sat up to consider his situation. The wrist was really talking to  him now.
            As he sat there, he sensed an incursion of regret entering his thought processes. “No kidding,” he thought.
            “I regret that I disturbed you,” it came in stronger this time. “It was not my intention.”
            The nearly visible immensity came near.  It seemed like a bulky mass enclosing a small galaxy of stars.
            “Are you a ghost?” said Ruell faintly. He knew darn well there were no ghosts, so this was an awkward question for him to ask.
            “No. But we don’t have time to go into all of that now. You need to go home before you go into shock. If you just keep going you’ll get there, and yes, I know where home is. Your mind shows it to me like a movie!” said the sparkly entity inaudibly.
            Star, for lack of a name, picked up the bike and moved a couple of bent things on it into workable positions. He set it on the road, using the kickstand like he did this all the time.
            “May I touch your wrist?” said the mysterious being.
            Ruell held out his injured hand and received a slight touch on his wrist.
            He knew a cue when he saw one. So he mounted his Harley and started it up. The wrist still hurt but it worked.
            When he turned to say something in thanks, he was alone again.
            Slowly, very carefully, he rode the rest of the way home, through the dark and rainy night.
            When he got home, his wife said he must go to the local hospital, but before they set out for the emergency department, his eldest daughter stabilized the wrist and hand with a foot long piece of a wooden ruler, wrapping the whole package in an elastic bandage.
            In the morning his wrist was surgically repaired. He took a couple of weeks off of work, since his work involved both hands, and he drove an automatic Chevy to work for a while. The Harley was repaired and continued in service for some time.
            He never stopped wondering if he had met a real Sasquatch on that dark and stormy road. He was pretty sure he had. And he never told anyone either, for he was a cagey sort of man.

🕚