Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Passover and the Blood Moon, and the old lady who swallowed the fly.

Today has been catch up on blog post day. And power off day. The power has gone off about four times while trying to catch up on blog posts. 

A sane person would have given up by now. I know. One blog post would suffice. Why not just do one blog post a week?

Yes. I agree that is a very good idea. One practice I need to take up consistently.
But the truth is, life gets in the way, and when I have a free day, I'll take it. The weather outside is drappy, skulky, windy, and whirly, hence the power outages, hence my succession of blog postings. 

 Hence, the fact that I'm tired of working outside, hence I have a lot of catching up to do. Hence, and henceforth and so forth, and whatnot. Whatever....

I'm in an odd mood.
Today I passed by a shelf in my house with a buzzing wrapper. I leaned down, and to my surprise I saw a very large fly trapped between the folds of an open package of gram-crackers. 

Irritated by the buzzing bug, I picked up the wrapper, only to scream out in horror. Not only was there a fly trapped between the plastic, but a clever great big spider had found his home there, waiting, apparently for the fly. I was so startled that I dropped the package, and let the gram crackers, the spider and the fly drop where they may. Then I proceeded to smash the spider, and sweep up the crushed gram crackers. 

Then, later, joking with my mom, I told her about the incident, and how I felt sort of bad that I had smashed the spider. After all, the spider had been very clever hiding there to catch the fly. 

"Feel bad?" my mom asked. "Why? I'm glad you mashed him. If you hadn't, I would have probably nearly eaten him." 

My eyes lit up upon thinking up something witty. "I how know," I said, "why the old lady swallowed the fly, and the spider." 

We both laughed. 

On a different note.
Very different. I wanted to share with you the pictures of the blood moon I saw last week.
  I believe it was April 14 or 15, or somewhere inbetween, as 12ish and 1ish in the morning are more inbetween places than actual days to me.

I heard that the eclipse was going to start at varying times. But I wasn't quite sure which. 
So I picked about 2:00 Am for a good wake up time, and set my alarm clock accordingly. 

But as chance would have it I woke up around twelve, and poked my head outside. 
The moon was shining like crazy. It was absolutely beautiful.  It was shining so white, so silvery bright that you could walk around with out the aide of a flashlight and watch your own shadow, like you were standing in front of a powerful lamp.

But it still looked like the moon, despite its amazing brightness. 
It was not orange, or red, or black.

Disappointed, I went back in the house and waited about 20 minutes, then peeked back outside. 
Ah, hah. I saw it. There was a dark shadow subtly crossing its surface. I was so excited that I ran into the house and tried waking everybody up. 

My mom was the only one alive enough to come and moon watch with me. 
We both stood and stared, watching as the shadow slowly covered the moon. 

But it was slow.
Very slow. And we got very cold. 
So we went inside and sat in the dark for a little while, and then peeked out again. 

Still looked about the same. Just a bit more shadow. But it was getting closer.

Not wanting to go to bed and miss it, we stuck in a movie and watched it for a bit, and then went back outside. 
The instant I went outside I noticed a definite change in lighting. 
It was dark. No silvery beams shown down to light our path. 
No long shadows. 
Darkness. It was spooky.
Ah hah. IT, the moon was almost gone.
We stared up and watched as it its silver beams slowly vanished. 

Then bit by bit, it turned orange, and then a rust-colored red. The stars behind it were brilliant. The sky beautiful. The moon itself was an eery orb of orange-red, an stirring and beautiful scene. 
I stayed out watching it long after my mom went in, thinking. 

Somehow the mood of the night, the once brilliant night turned somber, and the moon staring up at me, red, and dismal, I had a lot of thoughts running through my head. 

Tonight was the night of the passover. According to what I've heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, but every blood moon has happened on a Jewish holiday. Which I find quite fascinating.
A lot of people read a lot of doom and gloom into it. 
But there will be four this year. 
I for one, am not sure what to think. Only that it was beautiful and thought provoking. 
To me, it reminded me of the children of Israel, and the meaning of the passover.
The once bright night was darkened by the angel of death, and those who had the blood of a lamb marking their doors were spared. 

That is the reminder I gleaned from the blood moon. 
The words of a Hebraic Jewish roots Christan preacher, named Bill Cloud came to my mind----The angel of death passed the children of Israel by, because Christ passed over them, like a hen covering her chicks.  That is why it is called the passover.

 That was the gist of what he said. Not an exact quote. But I really liked what he said. And I don't think I've heard it put that way so beautifully. 
 
What was the blood moon like?
It was a reminder, that whatever the future holds, blood moons, wars, famines, that the Lord is in control. It is him we should put our trust. And that the darkness that is coming upon the world can not harm us if we look up to whence our salvation comes.

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