203 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-4-20”

  5. So I was reading this piece from CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, and I have to say, the more I read from victims like him, the less I think what I had was the flu. I described these “phantasmagorical experiences that are not dreams” type thing to Cheryl. It was bizarre. I woke up one morning feeling as if some great truth had been revealed to me. But I couldn’t remember what it was. My “dreams” were a mis-mash of unconnected scenes that some how fit and made sense. It was something I never experienced anything even close to before in my life.

    And I lost at least 20 pounds. I also cannot read anything without my reading glasses since then. That’s new.

    Also, like he says, “The beast comes at night.”

    https://news.yahoo.com/cnn-anchor-chris-cuomo-says-162428642.html

    “Chris Cuomo wants people to know that getting coronavirus is “no cakewalk” for the majority of people who don’t have to be hospitalized.

    The television anchor told his CNN colleagues Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Thursday night that he has dropped significant weight in a short amount of time since revealing on Tuesday that he has the illness.”

    “It’s not about life or death, I don’t it mean it that way, or else I wouldn’t be doing the show,” he said. “I’m not looking to scare people, I’m trying to do the opposite.

    “I’ve lost 13 pounds in three days. I’m eating and drinking constantly, I’m just sweating it out, and it’s the sickness … the idea that it’s easy so you can be nonchalant, that is so misleading. That I know for a fact.”

    Cuomo, 49, said that his symptoms usually worsen as the day goes along.

    “The beast comes at night,” he said.

    He said he’s suffered from a high fever, headache pain, sleeplessness, profuse sweating and even blurry vision in his left eye at night.”

    —-

    “He even had a hallucination of his late father, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who died five years ago. The vision also included his brother, whom he said was dressed in “a very interesting ballet outfit” and waving a wand saying he wished he could make this go away.

    “You have these wicked phantasmagorical experiences that are not dreams,” he said Thursday night.”

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  6. Good Saturday morning. I want to spend more time outside now that the pollen levels are down some.

    Has anyo e heard of the red ribbon movement. It is in memory of Passover that people are displaying red ribbons. There is also a heart and a rainbow movement where people display those on windows for people to see as they walk by. Children can count them and keep up with how many they see each day. Is anyone here participating in such activities?

    When I went by Karen’s apartment complex yesterday, in the middle of the day, it was the oddest thing to see the parking areas completely full of cars. They’re usually quite vacant. These are the oddest of times.

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  7. Janice, one condo in our development seems likely to be a rental and to be housing college students. They have paper butterflies and flowers in their windows. (They also had a broken beer bottle in the street a few days ago.) I’ve also seen a large teddy bear sitting on someone’s lamp, a child-size mitten on a shrub, and lots and lots of messages on sidewalks in colored sidewalk chalk.

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  8. From what you wrote, AJ, it sounds like there is a spiritual battle going on with this illness. I once had a really high fever related to dental work I’d had done. The first antibiotic was not bringing it down. During the episode I spoke with my brother and he told me he had asked a distant cousin to pray for me. I had out of the blue dreamed of that cousin.

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  9. Good morning. It is morning, I know this because not only are the roosters crowing and husband snoring, but the sky is beginning to lighten as the sun is coming up! Not really a surprise but a joy every morning.

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  10. The real, I don’t want this, not because I fear dying, but because of the stories I hear of how uncomfortable it is. I dislike discomfort. But there is hope! I was reading in Psalms this morning:

    God is our refuge and strength. a very present help in trouble Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. Ps 46:1,2

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  12. What Cuomo is describing is delirium, a mysterious phenomenon that occurs in serious illness that is not fully understood by the medical community. We do not know why the hallucinations occur, what it is about a high fever and/or reduced oxygen that triggers the brain to lose the distinction between waking and dreaming. I have experienced delirium before in several childhood illnesses and a few in adulthood. The presence of delirium is ominous. In school, I remember a lecture on delirium which included statistics that seniors who experience delirium are more likely to die in the next year.

    The symptoms that are being described in all of this sound familiar to me. I wonder if they sound familiar to Aji Suun. We both experienced a nasty virus in West Africa while I was there: high fever, unbearable pain, diarrhea, and, at least in my case, respiratory symptoms – for a while I thought I had pneumonia. I was so ill and in so much pain that I no longer cared whether I lived or died at one point. I had the virus in July of the year I was there. I returned to work in the clinic in August, but I felt as if I had not fully recovered. I have always thought that earlier virus contributed to my asthmatic collapse in December, as my physical strength never fully recovered. The two animals that have been described as carrying very similar viruses to COVID-19 are bats and pangolins. There were abundant fruit bats where we were. China has hunted its pangolin to extinction, so there is an illegal trade from Africa of the little relative of the armadillo – China is the new colonizer of Africa. I have wondered several times if the virus actually originated in Africa, and may have been brought to China via the illegal meat market.

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  13. Body temperature rises in the afternoon, which is why symptoms worsen at the end of the day, as the fever gets higher. The last time I experienced fever and chills with unbearable pain was when I got sick just before Christmas last year. But my fever started at night, which was odd. I had not felt that kind of fever and pain since my illness in West Africa. I self isolated myself, as there were 13 other people in the house and I didn’t want them sick over Christmas. Also, I could tell my lungs needed to rest if I wanted to avoid getting pneumonia.

    That is one thing that was observed in the Spanish influenza epidemic. Those who immediately went to bed and rested were more likely to survive. Muscles burn oxygen as fuel to produce movement, so when the oxygen supply is low, muscle movement quickly uses up reserves. Exertion can kill when the lungs are impaired. We had a man walk into the clinic in West Africa with what we think, from what the family said, was severe pneumonia. I saw him walk him, and I will never forget his face. He layed down and immediately died. The exertion of getting to the clinic had killed him.

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  15. Good morning.

    That’s strange and scary about those dreams Cuomo describes. The weird dream I had described on the prayer thread last week, which I had during the time I was experiencing various rotating symptoms, was not quite that intense, but it was difficult to determine whether I was awake or asleep or somewhere in between, and scary when I woke up and realized that, no, my 12-year-old daughter was not currently a toddler and in some crib or bed somewhere in the house, a location I couldn’t find.

    I had no fever, but my temporary confusion reminded me of what I think delirium feels like. (I’d been hospitalized with pneumonia once in childhood, and seem to recall I may have experienced delirium then.)

    Question for the medical personnel here: What was going through my mind last week during that collection of symptoms was that it probably wasn’t COVID-19 because I didn’t have a fever. (I did take precautions to keep others safe, though, in case it was.) But what I wonder now is whether fever is always present in COVID cases where other symptoms are manifesting. In other words, I know some COVID-positive patients have no symptoms at all, but for those who do, do they typically also have a fever?

    I should probably also mention that I did have a fever on April 10, along with a migraine, nausea, and vomiting. I was sicker that day than I’ve been in years, and couldn’t do anything but lie in bed. By evening of the next day, though, I was almost completely back to normal, and on April 12, it was like nothing had happened.

    But by two weeks after the fever had struck, I started getting all those weird but mild symptoms I described last week. So I’m wondering if the fever of April 10th was the start of something that went dormant for a couple weeks then re-emerged in a milder form?

    Plausible, or unrelated? Last month was such a strange month.

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  16. Janice, what lovely singing voices they have! Thanks for sharing that video. 😉

    A two-pronged QoD for you today — even though I already asked other questions above:

    When you fold your hands in prayer, which thumb is on top of the other — right or left?

    Also, which hand do you write with?

    I’m right-handed and place my right thumb atop my left. I’m curious if most people place their dominant hand thumb on top.

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  17. Nunavik, the Inuit region of northern Quebec, is getting hard hit. 23 deaths already in 8 remote communities. They are deploying the Canadian Rangers, the mainly Inuit and First Nations military reserve who are guardians of the north. The Inuit population lives in such conditions of overcrowding that one infected household could mean as many as 10-15 people exposed. Smoking rates are high, and COPD and asthma are common – it is not entirely the smoking that is at fault there, as TB is endemic and a condition called Hunter’s Lung is an occupational hazard of hunting in the icy cold air of the north. COVID-19 has the potential to decimate the Inuit and First Nations.

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  21. Morning! Some of this snow is melting from the tops of the pines…you will get clunked on the head if you walk out on the land…I shall wait for my walk until this afternoon!
    AJ what you described seems awful and I am thankful you are now on the other side of it all.
    I recall when our son was 18 he got the flu and experienced awful hallucinations. Our physician told me that the flu that year was attacking males in a particularly odd manner…he had seen similarities in his male patients that he could simply not deny. It was a scary time.
    6 when I fold my hands in prayer my left thumb is over the right…and I am right handed 😊

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  23. 6, it is really hard to say at this point. New viruses tend to produce a range of symptoms. Take Ebola. People are most familiar with the uncontrolled bleeding that is associated with that virus, but the reality is, that bleeding does not occur until the end stages. Those who survived would almost certainly not have experienced that symptom. The other symptoms of Ebola, such as a high fever, diarrhea, muscle aches, etc. could be the symptoms of any number of viruses. Indeed, there has been one confirmed case of Ebola where the person showed no symptoms at all – they only knew the person, a scientist who had been studying some monkeys that turned out to have the virus, had been infected by lab tests.

    Fever is a universal symptom of nearly every infectious disease, whether bacterial (scarlet fever, bubonic plague), viral (smallpox), or parasitic (malaria) in cause. That is because it is a response if the immune system – the metabolism is being sped up, for two reasons, 1) to increase the bodily processes needed to fight the illness, 2) most viruses and bacteria are at least impaired at higher temperatures.

    We all know the general course of a common cold or flu. The invariable pattern for me is sore throat first day, running nose second day, cough third day. If the virus is slightly more severe, the schedule might be lengthened to two days for each symptom. But with a new virus, the body will take longer to recognize the threat. It may infect more body cells as a result, and thus produce a wider range of symptoms when symptoms begin. RKessler noted yesterday on the news thread that it takes 6 weeks for full immunity to develop and that if a person is reinfected before that time, the second reinfection is likely to be severe. I remember learning about that immunity lag time in pathophysiology. That is why someone can be vaccinated and then infected with an illness. If there is not time for the vaccine to trigger the full immune response before exposure to the disease, the person is still vulnerable to infection until that response is complete. That is one of the reasons why public health does not wait until there is an outbreak to vaccinate children against illnesses.

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  25. Thank you, Roscuro. Interesting to know that the body takes longer to recognize the threat of a new virus, and more symptoms can present because of the infection’s wider spread. That makes sense, though I’d never thought of or heard that before. I appreciate the new information. Thanks for sharing your expertise.

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  26. 6 Arrows, I am right handed but place my left thumb above my right. Since when I hold the phone to my ear to listen with my left ear, I wondered if that relates to my doing that holding my right hand in my left as I talk to God? Do you listen to the phone (communicate) through your left ear mostly or your right?

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  28. Praying with folded hands: Okay, I don’t always fold my hands, either. Sometimes I pray while I’m driving; sometimes while washing dishes; etc. The “When you fold your hands in prayer…” part of my QoD was simply to give a picture of what I meant by “fold your hands.”

    Peter and NancyJill, thanks for your answers to my admittedly non-scientific survey. 🙂

    Interestingly, I just discovered a few minutes ago, when I was standing in the kitchen with one hand over the other, like how one might sometimes position one’s hands while standing and praying without fingers clasped, that I put my left hand over my right.

    So that’s the opposite of the right-over-left thumb position I mentioned with the clasped-fingers folding of the hands.

    Does it feel weird to any of you to position your hands or cross your arms, for example, differently than you normally do? It feels strange to me to have my right hand over my left when standing, and it also feels strange to put my left thumb over my right when praying with clasped hands. In fact, when I try to interlace my fingers with left thumb over right thumb, my fingers collide before they find the correct position. 🙂

    When crossing my arms, as if to say, “What are you up to?”, my right forearm is always over my left. It took a few seconds for me to figure out just now how to position my hands against my upper arms when crossing left forearm over right. It feels really unnatural!

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  30. OK, Janice, so you and NancyJill place left thumb over right, and Peter and I place right thumb over left, and we’re all right handers. So, so far it’s a tie. 🙂

    I hold the phone with my left hand to my left ear most of the time, but will sometimes switch to right hand/right ear in a longer conversation, just for variety. I never start with the right hand, though.

    And it’s more convenient to have my writing hand available to write something down while I’m on the phone. I’ve never liked trying to cradle a phone between my ear and shoulder; otherwise I could have done either ear and had my writing hand available at times when I need to write down something, or do something with my dominant hand, like stir things on the stove, for example.

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  31. Someone from my church posted this to Facebook. Wondering about thought from healthcare people here?

    “SOME HOPE, MAYBE ON HOW THE COVID-19 NIGHTMARE MAY END SOONER THAN WE THINK.
    I have been taking an informal poll. I hope and pray that it means something. I feel pretty confident at this point, that both ——- and I had COVID-19, and made it through in early March – BEFORE it was being considered as present in the USA, so we were not tested for it. Not going to go into all the details why I think we had it, but we were REALLY sick in ways we never had been before, all respiratory related. There are six other people in our “close orbit”, who may also have had COVID-19 and recovered, all of whom did so BEFORE testing for COVID-19 was being done. So what if far beyond the six others I suspect had COVID-19 and recovered, there are many more? How many more? I don’t know, but that is where my hope is. There may be a significant number of folks who had COVID-19 and recovered and who will not be infected again for some time, if ever, and never counted in any of the statistics being collected. If this is correct, I hope we will see a sudden drop off of new cases of COVID-19 in the USA, and more importantly fatalities due to the complications, in the next few days as the first-time infected population gets fully saturated. I may be all wrong, and the number of “already infected/recovered” may be too small to make a difference, or we may not have had COVID-19 at all, but I hope this may be a reason the counts will fall off soon. While I think —– and I may have had COVID-19, I assume that we have NOT in how we take precautions in public and with things brought into the house and viral disinfection procedures. I also don’t have an explanation for why if my theory is correct, why all these critical cases would be maturing at the same time, other than perhaps the most vulnerable folks are incubating from a similar infection start date, where those who could get over it [like my bride and me and maybe many others] did so, but those who are vulnerable, they have spiraled down, requiring hospitalization. I have no concrete data of a controlled study, but I sure hope the “Infection Confirmation” rate will turn around in the next few days. With hope and prayers…

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  32. I need to know how long the virus remains on surfaces. If I use a pair of disposable gloves as I did yesterday when I drove to Karen’s complex and I had to touch the call buttons to get into her gated community, can I reuse those gloves if I took them off and let them rest for a day?

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  33. Aj, so glad you’re better, that sounds awful.

    I think I’ll stay in again today.

    I still see some on FB insisting, mostly conservatives, that this is all completely overblown, no worse than the common flu when put into perspective. I think that largely is coming from the specter of what the response is doing to the economy and that is a concern.

    Who has a cloth mask they’re using now? All I have for now are long winter scarves I suppose I could wrap around my mouth and nose — should I need to go to the market. But I think today I’ll check into market deliveries, Amazon Fresh doesn’t seem to be working very well right now.

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  34. Good question, Janice — I’ve heard they’re supposed to thrown away, single-use only. And if they’re worn for some time, they also just pick up germs, etc., so it all seems very tricky when going shopping, for example — you’re wearing gloves but as soon as you touch things, they also will become contaminated? Asking, maybe there’s a nuance I’m missing.

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  35. My contribution to the animal pictures. Over the last year, the granddaughters and I have been collecting animal kitchen things. They are, from left to right, top to bottom: pot holder, sugar bowl, hand soap dispenser, detergent dispenser, brush, salt pig, toothpick dispenser, sponge holder, timer, and spoon rest.

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  36. I bought 2 cork-backed hard easy-wipe ‘placemats’ with a Noah’s Ark folk-art motif on the front shortly after I’d moved in here. They’re now used on the butcher block table, one goes under the cat dishes when I feed her.

    There’s also a folk-art cow print in a black frame that’s always hung in my various kitchens. It was an old wall calendar print I put in a black frame more than 30 years ago.

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  37. DJ, that story I posted about the rural nursing home outbreak? 23 people have now died, one third of those in the home. The flu does not do that.

    I get the same feed from conservative types. One thing that keeps occuring to me with all this talk of it being too costly to lockdown the economy. What do these people imagine would happen in an economy where large numbers of people are getting critically ill and dying, overwhelming the healthcare system. The Black Plague wreaked havoc on the European economy – historians believe the cultural Renaissance would have happened two hundred years earlier had it not been for the plague. The ravages of diseases such as smallpox wiped out the economies of the First Nations in the Americas. The choice lies not between saving lives or saving the economy, but between saving lives with some temporary damage to the economy, or losing lives along with the economy.

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  38. We are being advised to always wear a mask, so last night when we went upstairs for Movie Night, hubby and I both put on Halloween masks. It was “Pirates of the Caribbean (1), my all-time favorite! At first we weren’t going to go up but when I heard the intro music wafting down, I couldn’t resist.
    BTW, we are so grateful to be here with them during this trying time, not only to know they are OK but also for the company.

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  40. Janice, gloves are considered contaminated after one use. The same with masks. Also, viruses and bacteria last less time on your bare hands than on gloves. Gloves are needed only when coming into contact with blood and body fluids. Your skin is your immune system’s first line of defense, and it secretes chemicals act as part of what is called non-specific immunity. You are less likely to transfer germs with your bare hands than with gloves in activities that require touching more than one surface. For example, I use gloves to dress my patients’ wound, but sometimes, I need to get more supplies. If I used the gloves I had just been handling the patient’s wound with to get my supplies, I could transfer the bacteria from the wound onto clean supplies. So I remove my glove before getting the supplies. The key really is to avoid touching your face with your hands before washing your hands, as you could then ingest or inhale any viral particles that are still on your hands.

    We are being told not to use N95 respirators, even for those who have symptoms. When they test how long a virus lasts on surfaces or in the air, they are doing so in laboratory conditions. In the real world, there is far more competition in the microbial, and far different conditions. Yes, the virus could be airborne, in lab conditions where they are trying to aerosolize it. In the real world, it is unlikely to become aerosolized unless someone is intubated and suctioned (two procedures necessary for ventilating patients). Do, where the N95 respirators are needed is in the ICU. Otherwise, it is droplet and contact precautions.

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  41. 6 I use my right ear to use the phone as I have greater hearing loss in my left ear. It is difficult for me to use my phone when I have my hearing aids in the ears. It’s just weird.
    I like clothing with pockets…my tops and dresses almost all have pockets…so I have a place to put my hands!! 😊

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  42. Roscuro, a couple of weeks ago I talked to most of my siblings, and not one of the ones I spoke with was taking the virus at all seriously. Two of them were outright angry at the government “unconstitutionally” shutting things down. I have talked to a different sibling (not one of those two) more recently, and he is beginning to take it seriously. (He talked about huge numbers of deaths as a real potential, not as government hyperbole.)

    What you said about huge numbers of people dying will also destroy the economy occurred to me as I talked to them. But it also crossed my mind that these are people who normally are angry that the government isn’t pro-life enough. One of the two really vocal ones is “pro-life” to the extent of thinking that it is wrong to have a legal “life of the mother” exception to making abortion illegal and that an abortion in the case of tubal pregnancy is “murder.” But now, slowing down the economy to save countless lives is a government plot. (And, this person says, it has nothing at all to do with the virus, since the virus isn’t that serious.) After talking to all of them, I really hoped that my siblings weren’t among the people being nonchalant in public, because carelessness in a time of a new pandemic really can kill people.

    This is yet another example of “What you believe matters.” All my life we have had a culture of “What you believe is your own private business, and I have no right to tell you you’re wrong.” And we’ve had dangerous false beliefs circulating, and false teachers speaking openly . . . and now some of those false beliefs might very well be life or death.

    An even more profound example is “Pastor” Rodney Howard-Browne, a prosperity gospel heretic who has been insisting that his church must stay open. He ended up being arrested, but then his local government caved and decided to make it legal for him to continue to have hundreds or thousands of people gathering together in Tampa. One can argue whether or not the government has the authority to tell churches they cannot gather, but that isn’t my point here. My point is that that pastor’s false beliefs promising physical health are endangering people. I cannot and will not pray that a specific person get sick with this–but I think it would be good for his church if he did.

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  43. Droplet and contact precautions, as I had drilled into me in all those sessions on infection control, means gloves and gown if coming into contact with surface s and patient, and surgical mask if standing less than 6 feet from patient. 6 feet is the radius of droplet spread from speaking, sneezing, or coughing. The social distancing measure of 6 feet should obviate the necessity for wearing a mask, but humans do not seem able to grasp that, hence the need for a surgical (not an N95 redpirator) mask in public places.

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  44. I bought a dozen pairs of white archival gloves for my time in Indiana and never used them ($10 for a dozen). I know they’re not as good as disposable gloves, but I wore them to the grocery store for one level of protection. I took them off when I got to the car, folding them inside each other.

    Once home, I tossed them in the washing machine.

    I think I’ll make a few masks out of solid quilting cotton since it appears we’re now being asked to wear them when we go into the grocery store. Same thing, wear once, toss in the washer. Washing the clothes is sufficient to kill the virus–according to my family sources.

    I wasn’t too concerned about getting COVID until I read a statistic from a health care professional I know well that indicated one of my preexisting conditions puts me at far higher risk than I anticipated. Now, I’m nestling in with verses about fear . . . and turning worry over to God.

    I have a decorated little mental box in which I put the fear and hand it right over–often several times a day!

    Aren’t you glad we worship a God who knows our hearts and loves us?

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  45. Cheryl, Seven years ago we moved to Pennsylvania with our son, daughter-in-law (with whom I’m VERY close), and two granddaughters. We have an apartment in the basement and they have the rest of the house. I’ve talked about it so many times that I assumed everyone knew it. BTW, the “basement” has 8-foot ceilings and is graded such that there are regular windows on two sides and a walk-out sliding glass door, so it doesn’t feel like a basement at all. We love it.

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  46. Thanks roscuro.

    One guy active in our community who usually is quite reasonable, a graphic artist married to an ICU nurse, was arguing on FB the other day that this was being overblown. I responded a couple times, he said he’ll buy dinner if he’s wrong. I think this may have been right after the president talked about the “cure” being worse than the disease.

    Another reasonable conservative couple from our community — who just moved to Texas probably 6 months ago — also are gently suggesting this is a ‘flu’ in disguise and is being overblown.

    Others knee-jerk rail against the “terrorist” hysterical media as being behind it all, confusing all kinds of issues surrounding the current state of our media, but that’s another story. There’s no talking with some of those folks.

    I totally “get” how all of this is wreaking havoc on the economy and, more significantly, on so many people’s livelihoods — maybe mine in the not-too-distant future, from the looks of things now.

    But how much worse it would be to carry on “business as usual.” It’s a choice between two bad options, granted, but I think the choice for right now is clear.

    It’ll pass, hopefully sooner rather than later, a vaccine will be approved (again, hopefully sooner rather than later). Life will go on, perhaps differently for many of us. But

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  48. My pastor is very angry about that Tampa preacher.

    I called and left a message on my brother’s phone asking if he has anyone to pray with and suggesting we could pray. I have not heard back. We did not talk yesterday. The weather is good so he is probably working outside.

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  49. Is that the one who insists on having everyone gather in person for worship still? Interesting how often I’ve seen angry posts about that pastor by nonbelievers, who seem to assume the story is characteristic of how most churches are behaving. It’s an anomaly, of course (and there will always be those), but many have used it as an opportunity to bash people of faith.

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  50. I am so happy that I located my very old cookbook with instructions for making yogurt. The trade paperback, The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook by Jean Hewitt is falling apart and has no back. I have not looked at it for years. I went right to it on the shelf and the book opened to the yogurt section. It has a 1971 pub date. I bought it when I was in my twenties. I was surprised I had not gotten rid of it. I think it was too shabby to do ate. I’m glad!

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  51. I have seen reports go by on FB about some pastor in the US who insisted COVID was a hoax and who then died of it, but I didn’t stop to look at them. It didn’t seem right to float like that. There are a couple of Proverbs that strongly caution against being glad that an opponent is experiencing misfortune. One is 17:4, “he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.”

    The other is more enigmatic:
    “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth:
    Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.” (24:17-18)

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  52. Linda, I didn’t remember the details of who shared living quarters with you, but also from your post it wasn’t clear whether the “them” was people who are in the house with you temporarily or permanently. Thanks!

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  55. Roscuro, I don’t think any of us would gloat at the death of anyone from this disease (or any other). At the same time, I’m far less concerned that someone dies if he dies while scoffing at the danger of something. I’m more troubled by the death of people who are doing everything they reasonably can do to stay safe than by the death of someone who is running around every barrier and scoffing at them.

    And when the person is endangering other people, by what he says and/or by what he does, I don’t wish him harm, but neither do I hold my breath hoping he’ll be OK. And when he is making real pastors and real Christians suffer by “guilt by association,” then I actually don’t think it’s heartless to say that if people from his church are going to get the virus by his neglect–and pass it on to other people too–that if I were the one dealing the cards of who gets sick, I’d give one of the cards to him. I leave that work to God, but what such so-called pastors are doing is evil on multiple levels.

    I’m NOT saying that every pastor who measures the risks and decides to keep meeting is making an evil choice. I know this is a very hard one for churches everywhere. But when pastors are telling their parishioners to turn around and shake hands simply because the medical community is saying that’s dangerous right now . . . and yes, the pastor in Tampa is the one who did that two or three weeks ago, when the danger should have been obvious . . . that’s testing God, and in many other ways showing himself to be not just a spiritual danger to his sheep, but a physical danger to them as well.

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  56. I am making a couple of masks for my husband and me. We are already planning a grocery run for early Tuesday morning. I have never had to plan a grocery run like it is a military strike. Interesting and sad times for us and yet we are so incredibly blessed. This is another time I wished at least one of grown children lived near us.

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  57. Cheryl, yes tempting God is a sin that is not preached against much. When Satan tempted Jesus to jump from the temple pinnacle, Satan quote a Psalm that has been misquoted recently, Psalm 91. Jesus’ reply about not tempting God is one that Christians who are tempted to misuse Psalm 91’s promise of protection from pestilence should be remembering.

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  59. Donna, 1:12
    it isn’t good for a car to sit unused for long periods.
    You could have battery, and other problems. I try to run mine a while each week.
    But I hear that this is good for the accident rate.

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  60. Re: folded hands – I put my right thumb on top, and I am left-handed. Occasionally I deliberately do it the opposite way, just because it seems like it should be a neutral thing, which way I do it. But it just doesn’t feel quite as comfortable that way. Likewise, I almost always cross my right leg over my left. But when I cross my arms, the left one is on top.

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  62. I just finished making a homemade mask using one of my husband’s handkerchiefs (folded and pleated) and a shoe lace (a long one, cut into four pieces). I don’t know how much I’ll end up using it, but I figure I can carry it with me, and if most people start wearing them and don’t like having other people around who aren’t, I’ll be prepared.

    Things certainly have changed at the supermarkets in just a few days. Two of the stores put up large plastic barriers between the checkout clerks and customers, with a small area cut out for the card reader. Walmart closed one set of doors, and has someone posted at the other to count how many people enter and exit to keep more than a certain number from being in the store at one time, and another person inside acts as traffic cop to keep people going in and out from coming within 6 feet of each other. I’ve yet to see anyone actually have to wait in line outside (we’re not exactly a large population center here), but they have lines of tape six feet apart on the sidewalk.

    Most items are in back in stock. (I even saw several people leaving Walmart the other day with toilet paper, but they must have gotten the last of it.) The one thing I haven’t been able to find in two weeks is chicken gizzards, which I normally buy every couple of days for the dog (she’s diabetic and we feed her fresh meat and vegetables rather than dry food). Maybe more people are buying gizzards to save money because of sudden loss of income?

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  63. We do have it “easy” in so many ways during this time. I just signed up for a couple supermarket delivery accounts (one can also pick orders up curbside by appointment).

    ++++++++++++++

    A hot shower makes everything better. And I put up the new waterproof bathroom curtains (light blue) this morning, they look so cute, much better than the older white vinyl which were ready to be tossed and always were too long.

    Older homes from the early 1900s all had rather large windows next to the tubs. My window space was still original in the bathroom but during the unfortunate mid-century remodel it was filled with aluminum framing and louvre glass slats (obscure bathroom glass, but still, it always felt kind of exposed, though good for dealing with steam and moisture).

    When I took the bathroom look back to 1923 to match the rest of the house again, I insisted on keeping the large window (real estate guy howled, said I absolutely needed to use a small, horizontal high-placed window instead) but had a double-hung window put in the space so it’s now very true to the era. The glass is opaque but it still needed something to dress it up from the inside so the short curtains on a tension rod work perfectly.

    Meanwhile, everything in me wants to wrap myself up like a mummy and go to the Lowe’s nursery today to pick up some starter flowers for the backyard, gardening/planting supplies.

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  64. Roscuro, what do you think of the medical director for that nursing home? I’ve seen her on the news and if she had said what she was saying even before this pandemic, I would have gotten my parent out of there so fast. It seems like even if there is room at the hospital, she wouldn’t be transporting and isn’t transporting anyone, so they can’t be put on ventilators that may be available or get acute treatment. To me this is scary and wrong. Just because they’re old, doesn’t mean they don’t even get the chance!

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  65. Just learned a former newspaper colleague — he worked in the press room, very well known throughout the port community where he was active in all kinds of high school alumni efforts, nicest guy, picture of health, lived just a few blocks from me and was still working part-time down on the docks in the cruise ship sector — has died of the virus, he was only sick for 7 days. Both he and his wife had contracted it, the wife recovered.

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  66. I’ve never thought very highly of the Falwells. Jerry Falwell brought us religious politicians, a mixture that has proven unhealthy for the church as a whole, and got us trusting in princes instead of the LORD: Psalm 118:9 “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.”

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  67. I just transplanted my peppers and tomatoes, and planted spaghetti squash and cucumbers. The little plants in their little pots make me happy. Tomorrow I will plant castor beans and Iceland poppies for the flower pots/garden.

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  69. Janice, I’d like to see what Roscuro says about your 11:54 post, but I think there are a bunch of errors in its thinking. For one thing, it isn’t true that it wasn’t seen as present in the US in early March. Not knowing where those people live, it may not have been seen as present in their community then. But they also have no proof they had it. It’s all anecdotal speculation. And all along medical experts have been saying the biggest danger is “everyone getting it all at once” in a specific community and overwhelming that community’s medical care.

    The truth is we know little about the virus, including how it mutates, whether it will continue to live in warm weather, whether people who have already had it once will be immune after that, etc. So non-medical speculation is simply speculation.

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  70. So what do ya’ll think? My neighbor’s father fell at the assisted living facility. She met them at the ER and he was checked out and they are now leaving to return to the assisted living place. This is my neighbor and friend with whom I walk with daily. She is wondering if perhaps we should not walk together for a while…she is looking out for my safety. She says she doesn’t feel ill but she has been in the ER with her Dad. Husband thinks it would be a good idea to not walk together for a couple weeks….?

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  71. Nancy Jill, I agree with your husband. But even if I didn’t “agree,” this is the sort of place to honor him and trust his oversight. And it won’t offend your neighbor. You might give it a week and then walk with her with “social distancing,” but maybe you’re already doing that. But trust your husband’s lead on what is best for your family. (I’ve had to do that with my husband’s decision that my favorite walking trail isn’t a safe place right now.)

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  72. NancyJill, I’d wait two weeks. It’s hard to stay far enough away even when trying. I don’t know. It’s hard. Or have her wear a mask when you walk – that could work.

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  73. 28 new deaths in LA County according to daily tally just released (total now is at 117 deaths); and 711 new cases overnight.

    We’re still clearly chugging on the upward side of that hillside.

    Nancyjill, if she believes she was or may have been exposed, I believe the advice is for her to self-quarantine for 14 days.

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  74. Kare, the article I linked quoted from the medical director’s letter. It also stated that the local hospital was willing to take patients from the nursing home. There are several things that need to be understood by lay people right now about what we are up against.

    I wrote on here about the limitations of ventilators, but my comments were on the news thread. Basically, what I said was that not every patient will be helped by a ventilator. The article on that nursing home recounted the death in hospital, of a volunteer at the nursing home and wife if one of the residents. This volunteer had COPD. The article stated she could not be ventilated because of her COPD. That is correct. Ventilation with someone with COPD, especially if it is advanced, will just hasten death. Those with COPD are in a state of chronic acidosis because they cannot breathe off enough carbon dioxide, and their kidneys have produced more bicarnate ions to counteract the acid the high levels that carbon dioxide in the blood produces. Ventilation would suddenly remove all that carbon dioxide, causing the person to suddenly enter alkalisis due to the high levels of bicarnoate ions, leading to alkalosis, causing coma and death.

    Another condition of aging that makes ventilation dangerous is any cardiac condition. The ventilation places pressure on the blood vessels in the chest, causing, in turn an increase of work to the heart. Those who recieve treatment for conditions such as congestive heart failure are not unlikely to be able to tolerate ventilation. This is why those who are in fragile health are often refused major surgery. Major surgery requires ventilation, risking killing the patient.

    Many elderly COVID-19 victims have heart and lung conditions. They are not good candidates for ventilation. In fact they may not even make it to that point, as heart failure is a more frequent cause of death than pneumonia for COVID-19 patients: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-covid-19-may-damage-your-heart#Not-just-COVID-19-but-also-other-viruses.

    The other thing that must be understood is that many elderly people have chosen to have do not resuscitate orders attached to their chart. This means that if they have a heart attack or stroke, they will be kept comfortable but will not be resuscitated using extraordinary measures such as COR. Ventilation is an extraordinary measure. It necessitates sedation and paralysis, and patients must be regularly suctioned: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninashapiro/2020/04/03/what-does-the-ventilator-do-for-you-if-you-have-covid-19/#19d4d9174756. My grandmother, when she had her final diagnosis of cancer, freely chose to have a do not resuscitate order. She was a Christian. Our medical advancement had meant that it can be confusing as to what is denying vital support to someone, and what is an extraordinary measure. I did not initiate CPR on the dying in West Africa, as I knew CPR does not work without other lifesaving technology, such as ventilation, which were not available to us. Medical advances have limits, and even the firmly pro-life Catholic church has said that not using or the withdrawing of extraordinary measures is not killing. It is the disease, in this case, COVID-19, which kills the person. In another time, such as 1919, ventilation would not even be an option. COVID-19, like its relative SARS, causes at its worst, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, a condition in which the odds are very much 50/50, even with ventilation.

    There is one point of concern I have. While those with a do not resuscitate order are not given extraordinary measures, they are given comfort measures. One of these comfort measures is oxygen by mask or nasal cannula. An increased oxygen supply could ease the discomfort and reduce the hypoxic stress on their body. I hope these people dying in the nursing home are being provided with oxygen.

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  75. She said she was extremely careful while waiting in the ER but would leave it up to me. When we walk we always have at least 6 ft between us but I am going to go with husband senses is good. I actually take longer morning walks with husband and then join her on shorter ones in the afternoon. Thanks for your insights my friends ❤️

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  76. On Janice’s 11:04, which Cheryl mentioned. It has been estimated that up to a quarter of cases have not been detected by testing. We have an example here with our very own AJ. But, that does not mean that everyone who has such symptoms has had COVID 19. We know AJ was in contact with confirmed cases. But when Cheryl’s husband was tested due to his symptoms, he had influenza A, a nasty infection in its own right. We cannot assume, based on symptoms alone, that anyone has had it. After all, it is known that some people do not have noticeable symptoms, what is called subclinical illness. Now, subclinical illness does not usually produce immunity, because it does not trigger enough of a response in the immune system to trigger the development of the long term immune cells, known asmemory T cells. So, someone who has never had symptoms but did test positive for the virus is not necessarily going to be immune. So, having a mild or asymptomatic case of this is not necessarily going to protect against getting it again.

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  78. From today’s LA County totals report:

    “This is the most dramatic increase in deaths we have seen since the COVID-19 crisis began,” the county’s director of public health, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, said in a statement, “and our condolences go out to each and every person impacted by these heartbreaking losses.”

    The county’s tally did not include 27 new cases reported in Long Beach on Saturday or 21 cases and two deaths that were reported in Pasadena on Thursday and Friday.

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  79. Pauline, 2:38 — I was hoping to hear from left-handers, too. Thanks! 🙂

    Roscuro, 6:21, I know of someone who got the chicken pox twice. She’d had a very mild case as a baby, which wasn’t protective against a subsequent attack.

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  81. I was wondering where you were, Kim. How are you doing?

    NancyJill, I like pockets, too. When I first started wearing yoga pants around the house, though, (for warmth and comfort of wear) I missed having pockets! Now it’s warmer and I can wear shorts or skirts that have them. 🙂

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  82. I was asked to play viola for the Good Friday service, but I declined because I didn’t want to be packed into the musician space with seven other musicians, especially after having been sick off and on last month.

    NancyJill, I think two weeks of not walking with your friend is a good idea.

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  85. Oops, I guess if you said you’re alive and well, I don’t need to ask how you’re doing. I missed the “and well” part, apparently.

    Today would have been our district music auditions if not for the COVID- cancellations. The decision to cancel was made a little over 3 weeks ago, on a Thursday night. That seems like forever ago. So much has happened since then. It’s like we all stepped into a different dimension and the recent past was almost as if it had never happened, or occurred way back in another era.

    Surreal.

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  86. Twice later! Wow.

    Another right-over-left for a right-hander. I think that’s 3 & 3 now, with dominant thumb over vs. non-dominant thumb over.

    Very interesting!

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  87. I only got chicken pox once, but I had mumps on three sides. I got it first, and then my brother and sister got it as I was getting it in my second cheek. Then it went back to the first side for a second round, shocking my mom.

    Nancy Jill, even if she was careful, being in the ER does seem sufficient that she should be self-quarantining (not even going out for walks, I would think). She should assume she has been exposed, to be on the safe side. Not worth the risk of doing otherwise.

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  89. Second in-law had chicken pox three times. But then, as I said the other day, the herpes viruses have a latency feature that makes them less predictable. My bout with chicken pox at age 18 was one of the times I experienced hallucinations with high fevers, chills and soaking night sweats. Not a nice experience, but Youngest had it worse than I. She is generally healthier than I, but gets harder hit by illness. That bout of pneumonia that I had that made me decide to become a nurse? She also got it, and was so ill with double pneumonia that foam bubbled up when she breathed. A doctor later said, looking at her x-rays, that people her age never normally got it that bad, that double pneumonia with both lungs nearly full was normally only seen in the elderly. I only had it in my right lung, which is my usual lung to get it – physiologically speaking, the right lung is more likely to get infected because the bronchial branch from the trachea is shorter and straighter, allowing infection to enter more easily. Youngest is due any day now, and will be going to the hospital to deliver.

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  91. Just facetimed with an extroverted granddaughter. I didn’t stay on too long as I know she could talk and talk. I had already facetimed with my daughter with two little ones today. Their shenanigans were enough for now.

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  92. FWIW, my husband wasn’t tested with any thought he might have COVID–it hadn’t gotten to Indiana yet. But he’d had pneumonia only a few weeks before and was sick again, and he went to the doctor. I thought he might have the flu, but as I recall he didn’t think so, but that’s what the doctor tested him for, and that’s what he had. (I got sick the day before he did, but I didn’t have any achiness, which is what I see as the main symptom of the flu. So I initially I was concerned that he had the flu and I had something else, and we might cross-pollinate. Eventually I determined I must have had the flu, too.)

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  93. Thanks, Roscuro, for the more detailed explanation. I still found some of the medical director’s words very unsettling.

    And I, despite having had the flu shot, have had some sort of flu twice. January and now March.

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  94. 2 viruses usually don’t attack the body at the same time like bacteria will. Ive seen lots of positive flu and RSV, but never together in the same person.

    I thought how you fold your hands had a genetic component.

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  95. I had chicken pox twice. I also had both types of measles and the mumps. And every vaccination required for children in my era. When I had my titers drawn, I did not have immunity to mumps so had to have an MMR booster at age 54.

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  101. Last night I was listening to country music from the ’50;s On RFDTV, A channel mostly for rural America.
    I never heard much of the music, or anything else, for that matter, from the 50’s. I was too busy. Going to USC full time and working two jobs. And courting Elvera. I had no time to spare with goings on. Much less music.
    Anyhow. They sang a song I had never heard before. It never became popular. For good reason, I think.
    The song, sung by a man to his woman, was a song of love. “I know you” I know your kiss at night, I know your smile in the morning. …That sort of thing.
    Except the last line,
    “The only thing that I don’t know is where you are tonight.”

    After al. the pretty words, that comes as a shock. I think it was supposed to be funny.
    But it was more a shock. I can understand why I never heard it before.

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  102. DJ,

    We placed an order for Wegman’s for home delivery. I tried placing it early Fri. and it wouldn’t even take the order. So I left it up and kept checking it. Finally Fri. afternoon it said I could get my order delivered Wed. Needless to say, I pounced on that. 🙂

    So Wed. it is. 🙂

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  103. That Cheryl came in and grabbed 100 while I was banging away on this keyboard.
    The sun is rising on such a pretty day to be such miserable circumstances.
    This, and next week should be days of joy.

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  104. This man is a survivor. 🙂

    ————-

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-lapschies-oregon-veteran-coronavirus-recover-104-years-birthday/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=85796188

    “A “resilient” 104-year-old man who lived through the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression and World War II has now recovered from the coronavirus. William “Bill” Lapschies contracted the virus at the Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home in Oregon, CBS affiliate KOIN reports. He first started showing symptoms on March 5 and been isolated in his room, but as of this week, he is considered recovered from COVID-19.”

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  105. Chas, we hear a few songs and see artists who we had never heard of, too, on those old shows. Lots of songs never made it to be remembered. We hear the classics and assume there were only wonderful songs being written and sung. Not like today when so many are forgettable or ‘bad’ songs. Of course, that is not true. Same with hymns and CCM. Those old shows are so interesting to watch in view of the change in our culture, too.

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  108. Some viral diseases are named after their place of origin, such as MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a much more deadly relative of COVID-19, worse even than SARS – SARS had a 10 percent mortality rate, while MERS has a 30 percent rate. Thankfully, MERS appears to be much less likely infectious. Technically, though if we are going by place where virus was first observed, which is as near to place of origin as we can get, the Spanish flu should really be called the Kansas flu, as the first recorded case of it was at a military base there.

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  110. Mumsee, Likely Kim doesn’t have time to clean house.
    We are all so busy doing nothing that we don’t have time for something.
    Nothing is on the calendar for this month.
    I look at my April calendar and it is blank.
    BLANK, I tell you.
    So much of nothing is on the agenda, I don’t know that I have time for it all. t

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  111. Morning and a blessed Palm Sunday it is. We will try to log in for church later this morning.
    Most of yesterday’s snow has melted and it shall be replaced by the coming snow on Wed and Thursday. In the meantime husband and I will get in our morning walks and I will try to get motivated to do something around here 😊 I need to paint the laundry room…but I just walk in start a load of laundry and walk out….

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  115. Our sermon today will on the Triumphal Entry.

    I went back to my filled online “grocery cart” at the local supermarket and finally was able to get a delivery time scheduled — not until Thursday afternoon, but that’s fine, I’ll survive. 🙂 I think I’m getting the hang of this. I upped the tip amount, very grateful for those workers doing all of this right now.

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  118. Way behind again, so dropping in with comments before I forget (or in case I don’t catch up today).

    *******
    6 Arrows – When I fold my hands, my left thumb is on top, and I am right-handed. I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this yet, but I am pretty sure that this is a genetic thing. I think the way we cross our arm is also genetic.

    *******
    Cheryl – You mentioned that pastor in Florida (?) who is continuing to have services despite the warnings. I wish people like that could see that social distancing is part of loving our neighbor at this time. If there is an outbreak among his flock, it will also affect others outside the church, possibly leading to death for some. But I guess that kind of argument wouldn’t work on someone like him, since he must think this is some kind of hoax. 😦

    It really has amazed and disturbed me, how many conservatives, and conservative Christians, are dismissing the warnings about COVID-19. But I have seen that some who started out that way are changing their minds.

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  119. Turns out that X did not go to Maine after all. And his parents’ discomfort in supervising the visits is because of the current coronavirus crisis, not anything to do with him. X’s Mom insists that his mental health is fine, but Nightingale is still skeptical.

    Remember, after that package-stealing incident, he spent a couple weeks in a psych ward. Then again, could he be using mental illness as an excuse for his behavior?

    *******
    In other news, our neighbors either are not taking social distancing seriously, or they are not being as diligent in it as they should. Neighbors #1, on one side of us, still have people come over. Neighbors #2, on the other side of us, seem to think they are trying to be good, but still get together with the other neighbors.

    Neighbors #2 includes the husband who is currently undergoing cancer treatments, has had several heart attacks over the years (including a heart procedure just in the last few months), and is still quite overweight and smokes. His wife commented on Facebook that when he goes to his cancer treatments, she makes sure he wears a mask. But then we see him and her getting together with the other neighbors without masks. So I am praying for God to protect them, and of course, to save them.

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  120. My Youngest in-law is among those dismissing the crisis. It is consistent, as he has also questioned events such as the Sandy Hook Massacre over the years. But it is the way he is questioning this that is really disturbing. The tiny church is not meeting, so the head deacon has been sending out a prayer request list. In this latest one, he mentioned the nursing home outbreak. Youngest in-law replied by sending an email with video links that purported to question the crisis at Elmhurst hospital in New York. There has apparently been a rash of conspiracy theorists who sit outside hospitals and film the entranceway in an attempt to prove the crisis is not as bad as described. Youngest in-law, who is a deacon in the tiny church, using a church prayer thread to air his conspiracy theories feels like the outside of enough. I have no doubt when he attends his wife’s delivery in the local hospital, which has been treating cases of COVID-19, he will insist there was nothing abnormal to be seen, and that it was quieter than normal in fact. It makes me so helplessly angry.

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  122. Mumsee, the plan is still for him to take his wife to the hospital and for my parents to take care of the children, so I assume he will be allowed to attend. I have raised concerns about my parents going, but my mother insists the Youngest assures her they
    are observing social distancing. Youngest in-law has a degree in criminology, which he has never used, and is generally scrupulous to observe the letter of the law while all the while questioning whether the law is legitimate. Youngest did admit that they went to visit her in-laws, but insisted the in-laws were also observing social distancing. Her in-laws moved about a week a and half ago, and my father went to help them move, assuming in good faith that all were being careful. My father reported that other people outside the family came to help with the move, so at that point, we all had to resign ourselves to the fact that my fathet might have been exposed. Youngest in-law’s younger brother, who is at very high risk due to a heart condition, chose, even as people were advised to not travel, to go with his girlfriend to visit her family in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia then sealed off its provincial borders, so he cannot return now – this brother shares many of his older sibling’s conspiracy theories.

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  123. Husband just revised his calendar on the fridge. Nothing for April. He expects nothing forMay either.
    With eighteen year old, that means all the things we had her signed up for to keep her occupied and not crazy dangerous. yesterday, she and hubby picked up trash along the grade. They got a bit over eight large trash bags, including a couple of fishing poles and a nice hunting knife. Four cars passed them while they were out for about three hours. Upon heading back to the truck they found a freshly tossed beer can. Humans.

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  124. On a much happier note, I was able to get the city church’s service live, in which the pastor preached a very encouraging sermon from John’s account of Palm Sunday. Then, I went downstairs, and found that the pastor from the Second’s church was leading communion service remotely, so I joined in. We just used bread and grape juice we had. In West Africa, none of the team members were pastors, and wine/grape juice was not available, so we would listen to recorded sermons for church, and for communion used bread and cool-aid, the closest substitute we could find, so this was not my first time experiencing communion the n an unusual setting.

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  125. You know I think what bothers me about the pastor in Florida who continues to meet with his church is what are the people thinking. Will none of them think for themselves. If I was a member I think that I would be on the front steps begging folks to go home. Why are they all following him and putting their lives in danger?

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  126. Jo, personality cult. People can be persuaded, by a bit of twisted logic, to trust a pastor’s words as if they were God’s because they are taught the pastor speaks for God. They then place their trust in the pastor, thinking they are trusting God. I have seen it happen, and it is always tragic, even if the folly is not on such open display as it is in this case. It is such a catch 22 for such people, because if they do raise questions, they are immediately opening themselves up to accusations of doubting God for doubting the pastor. Spiritual abuse is a real phenomenon.

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  127. I did not clean my house. I frittered the day away. I read. I sat outside. I made Mr. P and me appetizers. I took a long soaky bath in epsom salts. I played a puzzle game on my phone.
    I dealt with a crazy real estate situation where the agent on the other side keeps calling me to tell me how wonderful HE is and how awful my agents are. I think we have all decided the buyer is playing the system.
    This afternoon I have my first online Listing Interview with a potential seller. Please pray that goes well. She would be selling in Alabama and buying in Florida so I would be able to help her on all sides. It meant I actually had to go put on lipstick and mascara. I don’t have any acetone to take the polish off of my toes so I just keep clipping them. I guess it will all be off by the end of April,

    Yesterday Little Miss turned TWO. Her Mommy is a BRAVE woman. They baked cupcakes together. Miss got to stir the batter and “help” then they frosted them and we got video of LM putting sprinkles on. Later the Facetimed us and Papa and I got to watch her open her presents.
    We got her this https://tinytownfairhope.com/collections/girl/products/ship-bloomer-set
    I didn’t pay that amount for it. What I did was
    1. Supported a small business
    2. Supported BG’s new employer
    3. Got a birthday present.
    She also got a bow and new sandals to go with it.

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  128. Personally I can’t imagine sitting and listening to anything this “pastor” says. Any shepherd who would put his flock in danger is unworthy of the title. He is acting more like a wolf.

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  129. I just came back from an hour long drive about town. Elvera went in her nighties, so we never got out of the car.
    Two reasons for this.
    1. Elvera needs to get out for a while.
    2. The car needs to run and burn some gas. It isn’t good for a car to be unused.

    Re: Donna’s 12:32. There are some fun jokes in there if you would like to go back.
    And some right corny.
    The FBC Hendersonville I mentioned is in N>C> I forget about the other.

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  131. Thankful to read everyone’s posts today. We had a great Sunday teaching time on Zoom this morning and then the service on Facebook Live. My friend, Karen, attended both and took communion. She is feeling like all the people she heard are ones to whom she can relate. I am thankful for her to now have contacts in the community who are Christian and many have a medical/scientific background as she and her family have. I think the impression she may have had of Southern Baptists is being challenged by the realities she encountered by listening in to the discussion on the book of Ezekiel. Later for the church service, the pastor told the whole Easter story as a refresher for anyone needing that. Then he finished his ten sermon series on the Prodigal Son in which he used the paintings of Rembrandt to help illustrate certain points.

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  134. Cheryl took some vacation days this week. (previously scheduled for Easter)

    So the blog won’t update until 8ish AM this week. Just a little FYI. 🙂

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  136. We had another lovely live-streamed service with communion as well. Coke for my husband and water for me. We didn’t have anything closer. But I have water every other communion anyways. It was very nice to see familiar faces. My co-worker and his wife led worship this morning.

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  137. The guy in Tampa is also the one who started the “holy laughter” movement of a few decades ago (people barking, howling, laughing, etc.). He has been “on my radar” since the mid to late nineties when I edited a book on the movement (a book that ended up not getting published). He has been endangering his people for a long time with false teaching, and with lots of weird stuff, so basically anyone who is still following him has been brainwashed enough to trust him over actual medical and government experts.

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  138. Our church service is expanding, today we included a Q&A session with the pastor following th service. People sent questions online, about the sermon, the Bible, other questions that today included some about the triumphal entry – the topic of our sermon – the second coming, and what will we do about communion if this situation continues.

    On the latter, our pastor said it’s a topic the session will be revisiting since this now appears to be a situation that could go on for a while. The church must administer it in some fashion, so it could involve some kind of pairing up (6 feet away!) with a deacon or elder individually or with very small groups of 3 or 4 people(?) and outdoors somewhere, but that’s just my guess. Either way, it’s tricky but I know that everyone’s safety is upmost in their planning; our pastor addressed the livestream vs. in-person service issue during the followup SS period, saying this is one of those Sabbath day exceptions of “mercy and necessity” the Scriptures address.

    What they’ll decide about communion, I have no idea. For now we’re going without (and it was already determined by the session that allowing for a ‘virtual’ or individualistic communion at home would not suffice).

    The Q&A was a good addition to church today, they’ll presumably continue to do that every Sunday again after church via livestream.

    Then I had to deal with a work-related call about a story this week coming up (ugh, Monday’s coming too soon); and then Carol called, she had a rather disturbing episode at 2 a.m. with what she’s identified as a rather serious heart pain that she’s never felt before. They gave her a nitroglycerine tab, which she said helped “some,” and told her it’s not a good time to be going to the hospital, so they’re monitoring her there for the time being. She’s better now, but said she still doesn’t feel very well, she’s dizzy and has a bad headache, so she was going to take a nap after we talked. Worried about her. …

    Chas, that drive sounded refreshing. I finally received an ATM card w/an assigned pin for my credit union savings account so I may take a drive myself today to make a withdrawal from that and put it into my checking account; time to get serious about mailing off that property tax, paying my homeowners insurance and getting my car registration renewed, all due this week.

    It’s a sunny, cool day today, with maybe some showers on the way for Monday and Tuesday.

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  139. Oh yay, my plant food order is coming today, according to Amazon. Gotta keep myself busy with something these days so I’m picking away at the gardening projects.

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  141. Kizzie, my neighbors on the one side mix frequently with their kin around the corner. They help babysit for them and they and the dogs are frequently walking back and forth from one house to the next. But I suppose since they’re sort of ‘one’ household anyway in normal times …. ?

    Still, I continue to caution Carol about the visits with her boyfriend, how she still needs to maintain 6 feet distance from him when he stops by her room as he’s more active and is up and down the hallways in a facility where there are more than 100 residents and staff.

    One of the skeptics I know with regard to this virus is also a friend of the former news colleague who died this weekend after being sick for only 7 days; he told me on the phone yesterday that he’s beginning now to change his mind.

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  145. We took a long walk after the rain this afternoon. It was good to get out of the house. I’m lazing along, but have calculated if I wrote 1000 words a day on my Lettie bio, I may have a rough draft by the time we’re released from sheltering in place . . . 😦

    Or, if I double or quadruple the number (maybe tomorrow?), do you think we could be out earlier? LOL

    Anything for the team . . .

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  146. Communion: It should with a body of believers under the leadership of appointed elders/pastors. Paul notes that communion is done when the body comes together, and bars those under church discipline, which involves decisions by the elders, from communion, so order is certainly required. But, as in West Africa, it is not always possible to have elders present. Groups of Christians around the world are often isolated from the comfort of fellowship and the shepherding of an pastor. I was for three months in Nunavut, but I did not take communion by myself because I was not with other believers. I was without a pastor in West Africa, but I did take communion with other believers.

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  147. My question: Is it necessary to have communion/the Lord’s supper when we can’t be together? I know most churches have scheduled times, but is it necessary? Jesus said “As often as you do this…”, he did not say do it often. We have been in churches that celebrate it every week, one that celebrated it once a month, and now we have it maybe two or three times a year. The leader of the house church (pastor/elder/whatever word you choose) does not like to schedule it often so that it doesn’t became routine, meaningless ritual. We do it by request of any member. I imagine we’ll celebrate it on the first time we can be together again.

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  150. Earlier today, a friend on Facebook shared a quote about the importance of laughter in a relationship. I replied:

    “[Hubby] and I loved to laugh together, and each of us could make the other laugh. I think that’s what kept our marriage together during the tough times, and enhanced it during the good times.”

    That was something we often remarked about when we discussed our marriage, or looked back at what we’d come through together. Was it on here that I recently mentioned that I thought of our marriage, in which we had grown into that “one flesh” as the Bible says, as “a secret society of two”? I know I wrote about that somewhere, but I’m not sure where.

    As you may imagine, and I think I have mentioned, I am missing him a lot these days, pretty intensely. I know there’s nothing he could do to help, but I wish he could be here with us anyway.

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  151. DJ, we were scheduled to have the Lord’s supper this evening (unfortunately we don’t do it nearly every week), but nothing was said about it. I know they wouldn’t do it “virtually” as that would seem too flippant and not what a sacrament entails. (We don’t have individuals baptizing each other either; sacraments are given to the church, elder-led, and not to individuals.)

    My hunch is they’ll “wait it out” unless this thing stretches beyond another four to six weeks, but that they’re talking about it as a session.

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  152. Roscuro, in church history some groups have rarely celebrated communion because they didn’t have access to a pastor very often. If most services are conducted by a lay preacher but an ordained minister comes through once or twice a year, then they do it once or twice a year.

    Peter, on the doing it infrequently lest it become rote or meaningless, two comments: (1) Does that pastor and others making that argument limit the frequency with which he kisses his wife or tells her “I love you”? (2) I have heard that argument given a lot (including, unfortunately, by my own pastor), but never by anyone who had actually participated in celebrating the Lord’s supper every week. (My previous two churches celebrated every week, and so I got rather spoiled.) In my current church, which does it less than once a month, several people have mentioned to me that they’re used to “every week” and all say they miss it. I have never heard anyone say “That’s too often” except people who’ve never actually done it that often!

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  153. Kizzie, I have often told my husband that I’m glad he and I are together during this time, so I can well imagine that the “missing” would be more intense if he were not.

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  154. One of the Calvary Chapels we attended only did communion once a year in a special koinonia service. That was too rare for me and one of the reasons we didn’t stay at Calvary Chapel.

    The Anglicans celebrated it every week, it was like a mass; the Lutherans twice a month. Either way is fine with me.

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  156. That would have been my second question: are pastors or elders the only ones allowed to baptize.

    I, of course, disagree on both counts. And would prefer to have communion whenever I get together with other believers.

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  158. Weekly communion is anything but routine. 🙂 And yes, we miss it, but I can’t really see how we get around this situation right now. We likely will wait it out, as well, but it will be interesting to hear about the session discussions about it. It is most definitely viewed as something the church administers in our denomination; if a ruling elder or pastor is not present in the congregation to preside over the supper, we skip it on that particular Sunday.

    But routine? Never, it really is a highlight of our Sunday worship each week.

    I took a quick trip to Sprouts this afternoon. My face was wrapped in a heavy winter scarf, I could hardly breathe, and I had on bright pink disposable gloves. I was drenched in sweat by the time I walked out of the market. The scarf came off my face first, then the gloves which I promptly disposed of in my car trash bag, I’ll dump them in the regular trash can outside later.

    It was a very strange environment, everyone had masks on, like something out of a weird sci-fi futuristic movie. Really pretty creepy, all of us ‘anonymously’ behind our protective coverings slowly meandering down the aisles looking at half-empty shelves.

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  159. Back to the which thumb with folded hands question –
    I noticed during church this morning (as one of the handful who do the recorded service, though my role is mostly to give my husband someone to look at as he preaches instead of just empty pews) that it depends whether I interlace my fingers or not. If I interlace my fingers, the right thumb goes on top. But if I simply fold one hand over the other, the left hand goes on the outside and the left thumb on top. I think I usually do the latter when praying, but of course it’s hard to say because if I’m paying attention, that could affect which I do, and if I’m not paying attention, I won’t notice.

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  160. Is there something specific in the Bible that indicates that communion must be done under the supervision of a pastor? (Asking sincerely, not challenging anyone.)

    Since I have to get off the computer now, I will see any replies tomorrow. (And yes, I have finally caught up with you all.) Goodnight, dear fellow wanderers! God bless, and sleep sweet!

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  162. Pauline, I do the same as you — it depends on whether my fingers are interlaced or not. We write with opposite hands, though. 🙂

    I noticed the thumb positions of two of my children today — both right-handed — and one had her left thumb on top, and the other her right. Neither hubby nor son had interlaced fingers, and I didn’t pay attention to which hand was over the other. As for the other daughter, I couldn’t see her hands.

    If it’s hereditary, it makes me wonder how my mom and dad and siblings fold theirs, if they do. Something to find out another day.

    Thanks for the answers, all.

    162. Don’t get to claim that much! 🙂

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  165. Probably. We’ve had everyone but the pastors mother drop by our house today. We are a very small group. Our pianist, a recent widow, feels quite isolated so we invited her over to watch some “that the world may know” vidoes. It was a nice time of fellowship. The pastor came by and dropped off his sermon and scripture readings for the week. He just stood on the porch. The other fellow came and got eggs and stayed for tacos.

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  166. I got the composing bug tonight. I want to introduce some music to my high school piano student that has time signatures a bit out of the ordinary, just for some variety. So I’ve been looking through my music collections this weekend and didn’t find a whole lot of examples that are roughly at his level.

    Time to compose when that happens. I had in mind to do five miniatures of 12 measures each. (Each piece of that length fits neatly in the little manuscript books I’ve gotten free at piano teachers’ workshops in the past.) Tonight I finished 4 of the 5 pieces — the ones in 2/2, 5/8, 7/8, and 9/8 — and got the first four measures done of the one in 12/8 time.

    A little before 9:00 was when I stopped for the night, since hubby was going to bed then. Tomorrow I’ll finish, Lord willing, and have some new music I can mail to my student.

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  168. Whether communion / the Lord’s supper must be done under the supervision of a pastor: first off, it is a “church” event (ordinance / sacrament), not simply something that people do when they get together. I’m pretty sure it isn’t a controversial statement to connect it to public worship / the gathered church. Second, church discipline gives pastors the authority to ban unrepentant people from it . . . which they can’t do if they don’t have any authority over it. Those are indirect answers, but should work as a partial answer.

    I wouldn’t say that only pastors can perform weddings, because weddings aren’t sacraments; marriage is common grace to believers and unbelievers alike. But sacraments are given to the church. It isn’t blasphemous for unbelievers to get married; it would be blasphemous for them to decide to hold their own communion service. Likewise, a group of Christians can get together and sing hymns as a part of private worship, but private worship is different from public worship, and the sacraments belong to public worship. (In the early days of the church, baptisms weren’t always public events, but there is no record in Scripture that I know of of a baptism performed by someone who wasn’t ordained as an apostle or an elder or, possibly in the case of Philip, a deacon. But being baptized in the outdoors made them public in a different way, even if the entire church wasn’t gathered.)

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  169. In analyzing the hand folding, I just realized that my right hand really takes control over my left hand by gripping over the main part of the hand and then the left thumb is left out in space unless it folds over the rest. It could even have to do with the length of the thumbs, too, as to which one folds over. If my right thumb were longer then it could reach and fold over the whole left hand with thumb included. So this begs the question, which little finger is on the outside of the folded hands? That could be the difference, too.

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  170. When we did communion today I felt totally in the presence of the pastor who was leading the service and with the others taking communion, all at the same time in one accord. It would be similar to the feeling of being in the throne room with God while in prayer. It was done sincerely and in Spirit and in truth. Some can judge it as flippant, but God will be the final judge on that. I am remembering the astronaut who took communion on the moon. He did it sincerely and in a very reverent manner. God knows the hearts of people trying their best to worship, honor, and remember all Jesus did on the cross. I trust God’s judgement in this matter during these difficult days.

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  171. Art continues on with his marathon work session.

    Tonight I watched the Passion City Church online service that a lady in my Bible study group suggested. It was a really good message from Hebrews which is the book our ladies’ group has been working through.

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  172. I don’t see anything specific about needing an elder present for communion, but one could interpret 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 as saying that, since Paul uses the phrase, “…when you come together as a church…” (vs 18). I think many presume that means an elder present. However, a lot of our practices that we think are scriptural are actually traditions handed down from the Catholic church, which adds tradition as important as the Bible. So, my point is, if an elder is not present, and the people have no qualms, then let them have communion.

    Oh, and I’m not against weekly communion. We were part of two churches that had weekly fellowship meals with communion as part of it, either just before or at the end. After all Jesus instituted it as part of a meal.

    Also, if necessary, I believe it is fine for anyone to baptize another. When we lived in Sedalia, Missouri, our pastor had the fathers baptize their own children when the child became a believer.

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  174. I talked to my brother for about five minutes early in the day, talked to Art for about ten minutes this evening, talked to Wesley for about fifteen minutes during the afternoon, and talked to myself and Miss Bosley off and on all day when not doing church events.

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  177. Has everyone else gone to bed? It is only 11:15 here on the East coast side of the country.

    I heard an owl hooting before dark which seemed odd. Now I hear it starting up again. I enjoy hearing them in the distance.

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  178. What roscuro and cheryl said about communion. I’m too tired to go there tonight, but they covered it.

    I’m still up, it’s only about 8:30 p.m. here. I just got back from walking the dogs & am doing more laundry.

    I am dreading Monday.

    I sometimes hear an owl on one of the blocks where we walk now, didn’t hear him tonight. There were what sounded like pre- or young teen boys LOUDLY horsing around (haven’t heard or used that phrase in a long time!) in one of the fenced off yards we passed. It reminded me how hard boys are to endure at certain ages.

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  180. Much earlier I think Michelle said something about going for a walk now that the rain had passed. Well, our rain passed and it turned to snow! So, no, I did not get my walk in tonight.

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  181. Ugh, more railing on FB tonight by some (who don’t know better and seemingly don’t really know any Christians themselves) about how “conservative” Christians are holding in-person services to defy science and medicine. That’s such an incorrect portrayal of what’s going on in the vast majority of churches. There’s a lot of anti-Christian sentiment and ridicule on social media pages in our community.

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  182. Our rain starts shortly after midnight, must be the same system you’re getting, Jo. This is a very odd spring, cold and rainy (not that I’m complaining, especially since we had too little rain through the latter part of winter).

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  183. I thoroughly enjoyed the show on Fox news. It was so positive. And a lot of them were Christians and giving glory to God. They even had a short time with Franklin Graham and several from his group. Best thing I have seen online in quite a while
    I got a foxnews email that told me it was coming on so I looked to see if I could watch.

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  184. Our local guy said that this storm was approaching epic. Meaning totally beyond what we usually get this time of year. This is what we would expect in January. It is really bringing up our snow totals in the mountains and that is what we rely on for water all year.

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  185. A couple other questions about the Lord’s supper: What makes it communion and not just a snack? There is nothing wrong with Christians (or unbelievers) having a snack together . . . but nothing particularly holy about it either. What makes it the Lord’s supper?

    Two, how do we judge what is true or what is proper, particularly in terms of worship? I see words like “sincerity” being used, but I’ve always been taught that sincerity isn’t a good standard for whether or not something is true. What is our standard?

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  186. oh, I did order some masks today from a friend. She posted on facebook that she had some coming and what they cost.
    I was so relieved to find a way to get some. I did not want to post on facebook that I wanted some. I was pretty sure to get a snarky comment from my sister or someone telling me to make my own.

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  190. I must have signed up with fox long ago to get news alerts. I did not realize I could watch shows like that on my ipad. Actually I did not even know the show existed. It said it began at 9 eastern time so I watched it at 6pm here.

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  191. Just watched a facebook video from someone in the czech republic saying they were doing so much better than other countries because everyone has to wear masks.

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  192. Let’s see, I got 100. But I’m in the eastern time zone and it’s already past my bedtime, so I’m not going to stay up for tonight’s race. But if it’s there to be claimed in the morning . . .

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  198. I was thinking of the pollen in today’s rain. Two days of rain should have cleaned it all away. I had puffy eyes after Friday at my home. The church is at about 2600 feet and is the elevation where I used to live. My new home is a thousand feet lower and there was a lot of pollen there.

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  199. In fact I am surprised that I haven’t seen the parking lot all covered with yellow. It may be because we have a good yard maintenance service. They do a great job leaf blowing the church parking lot and include my house. Does leaf blowing remove pollen?

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