Into the Scotia Barrens on a Sunny Blue-Sky Day

It was to be one of the warmest days in a while, and it began with sunshine and blue skies. We had talked about going somewhere far, but in the end, we didn't bother. We didn't want to spend too much time in the car and waste any part of this sunny day.

Traction is a problem these days. It's icy everywhere. And when it melts, it gets worse. Water on top of ice? Get outttttta here! It's dicey in the best of circumstances. So when my husband said he wanted to jog, I had my doubts, to be sure.

He wanted to try the closed road over by the shooting range in the Scotia Barrens, but I was leery. Well, imagine BOTH of our surprise when we got there and discovered conditions nearly perfect for both walking and jogging: there was a light layer of snow on top of the ice. It was melting, so the consistency was a bit like wet sand* by the time we left, but it wasn't SLICK and slippery, as it could or should have been.

Here's a shot of the closed road that he runs on and I walk on. To the right is a speed limit sign that always makes me laugh: SPEED LIMIT 25 MPH. Now that the road is closed, most of us don't have a chance of going too fast for that. To the left are some rocks I like to sit on in the sun. It just seemed pretty, and bright, and lovely. For my money, February sometimes has some of the bluest skies I've ever seen!

We drove by a local church on our way to and from the Barrens, the Lutheran Church in Gatesburg. It had a sign out front that said simply: 
Love Is Patient 
Love Is Kind
It was a very good reminder, especially in these contentious times, and so I'm putting the whole verse below! 

Now it's time for what I like to think of as a Methodist Moment. If you call yourself a Christian, *I* am calling you out: Put your money where your mouth is, right now. SHOW ME YOUR LOVE FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR, especially for the one who is NOT AT ALL LIKE YOU. 

Are you taking joy in the suffering of others? That's some seriously sick attitude there, buddy; are you proud of that? Are you hating on your family, friends, or strangers? How very sad. I am here to tell you to CUT THAT SH*T OUT. I mean it.

Show me your love in your words, especially on social media, where it is so easy to be anonymous and vengeful and mean. Show it to me in your attitude of care-taking for the other. Show it to me in your actions. As I so often say to my husband, especially when it comes time to make hard choices: "Jesus is watching."

My soundtrack song is ELO, with Mr. Blue Sky.

1 Corinthians, 13, NIV.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

*This scene, if the white snow were white sand instead, also reminds me of Ocala National Forest in central Florida, a place we used to vacation once a year back in what we are now calling "the early years."  :-)