Up the Sunbeam

-- That's a funny title, I know. Good - Bad High - Low Light - Dark Up - Down Victory - Defeat Success - Failure Honor - Disgrace Glory - Shame I think it's safe to say that these pairs of words are polar opposites. There is kind of a "never the twain shall meet" quality about each combination. These are "one or the other" propositions--you can't have both, at least not simultaneously . . . or so we think. As a lover of words, I have always enjoyed oxymorons--those quirky little figures of speech that carry contradiction like cargo--"jumbo shrimp," "act natural," "same difference," or "alone together." The word oxymoron is an oxymoron itself, meaning "sharply dull." Well, I think Jesus was a living oxymoron. He was God incarnate who left His home in HEAVEN and came to EARTH for one purpose--He said that purpose was to be lifted up. "But I, when I am lifted up from the ear...

I watched the news this morning. Ever feel like Henny Penny was right and the sky really is falling? Bombs in far away places, more than 100 killed, mostly women and children . . . The powers that be, fighting for the lives of fish and animals while they callously starve people and abort babies . . . World leaders promising to save the world while they try to steal our freedom . . . A 15 year old girl gang-raped while a crowd of onlookers just watched the sh ow . . . A 7 year old girl, slain, discarded with the trash, laid to rest in a coffin excruciatingly small . . . How bleak the view wher e there aren't shades of grey black enough to do justice to the darkness of the scenes played out before our incredulous eyes. What do we do when it looks so impenetrably dark? How do we keep from giving in to the sadness and fear and hopelessness of a despairing world? Even worse, what do we do about a world blinded to the darkness to the point that some even call darkness light....

It used to bloom. Sometimes it still tries, but it didn't bloom this year. Our crape myrtle, my husband's favorite tree with it's riot of ruffled clusters of bright raspberry flowers, should be capable of growing into a shady green canopy to cool all beneath from the blazing Contra Costa sun . . . but it hasn't. We had such high hopes for it wh en we planted it shortly after we moved into our house in 2000. Shown here (long before I had a good camera) on that fateful Tuesday morning, Septem ber 11th, 2001, when we knew the world would never be the same and nothing made sense, our crape myrtle was healthy and growing, still young and spindly, but go ing places. It proudly held our courage-flag as we tried t o keep hope alive in the midst of so much death and destruction in an event that felt i ntolerable. That was 2001--this is 2009. Wh y, after more than 8 years does that t ree look like t hi s? There are thousands of these trees in this a...