Monday, January 16, 2023
Martin Luther King Day
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
A spoonful of sugar
No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Mary Poppins only gives Mr. Banks a week. But she knows how to fill a week. Speaking of (and to) the robin outside the nursery window:
A robin feathering his nest has very little time to rest
While gathering his bits of twine and twing
Though quite intent in his pursuit, he has a merry tune to toot
He knows a song will move the job along …
In an only-Disney touch, Mary holds her hand out the window, the robin hops on her finger and comes inside the room, to add robin-happy-harmony to her song of songs:
For a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,
The medicine go down, the medicine go down
In a most delightful way.
The movie’s barely begun, and we are caught in Mary’s web of happily ordered joy. Her magic snaps the toys away, the clothes into their drawers, all the furniture into the doll house … and Michael’s caught in his closet, doors swinging open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. She looks into the mirror and sings to herself about the honeybees taking a nip from each flower, and herself sings back:
And hence
And hence
They find
They find
Their task is not a grind!
Julie Andrews had a four-octave range until a botched surgery ruined her singing voice forever. But that was decades later, and in this movie she sings! Herself in the mirror belts out higher and higher notes, while Mary gets more and more perturbed.
“Cheeky!” she exclaims.
Herself in the mirror winks at Mary, and off she goes to the park with the children.
New wine is poured into fresh wineskins.
The only thing better than watching a movie like this is watching a movie like this with Miles and Jasper. 6 and 3 years old, having watched very few movies, not sure whether to be scared or sad or happy, laughing mostly and crying some, while every scene and every song in this masterpiece cuts them to the heart or gets them jumping up and down.
Shout hosanna!
Their sleepover with us is off to a resounding start. And besides that, our stranded car started too, after a burst from a new jump charger delivered overnight by Amazon. Earlier we braved the breezy, cloudy weather and cast our rubber fishes into (and over) the apartment swimming pool. Margaret helped them make pink icing out of white and red, and she built us a beautiful chicken pot pie. Tomorrow we eat out, at the Monument Café in Georgetown, where they can make anything on the menu gluten-free.
At church today we talked about listening to God. What do you hear and how do you hear it? Listen, learn to love the moment, praise God together, all this comes easily on this day surrounded by two young boys, alive and well.
The word of God is living and effective, able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
 (Hebrews 5, Psalm 110, Hebrews 4, Mark 2)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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