I love New Mexico Winters. It’s cold at night, usually in the low 20s, but it gets up close to the low 50s during the day. And, our prevalent sunshine makes it feel even warmer.

What snow we get usually melts in the sunshine in a day or two.

I don’t miss hard, gray, cold, snowy Winters, but I can still appreciate the beauty of Winter in a country like Norway…

Since I lost my sense of taste, this is definitely an approach I like…

New Mexican quarantine coffee…

The FBI recommends this strategy and I’m all for it…

This next one is actually something Betty and I disagreed about when we first got married. Our families did it differently. Naturally, we do it Betty’s way. I’m no dummy…

For New Mexicans, mild salsa… actually mild anything… would be a form of hell…

For this brief pause, for this reminder of my
own weakness and of my dependence upon you,
I thank you, O Lord.
A day such as this, in which I endure
a measure of sickness or unease,
is a reminder that the redemption of all
things is not yet complete. It is a reminder
that this body will decline and one day fail,
and so it is also a reminder that the ways
I spend my days matter—for my hours,
revealed like veins of gold beneath a rushing
stream, are a limited resource to be
purposefully mined or forever lost.
A day such as this is a reminder that good
health and vigor are gifts to be consciously and
gratefully enjoyed, and to be invested while they
might, in eternal things. So let me finish this
day, O Lord, wiser than I began it.
Let me live now, in light of the knowledge
that a time might come in this life
when I feel such sickness and discomfort
for a long season, when I must adjust to a
“new normal,” when my abilities are limited
either by the slow decline of age
or from some accident, injury, or disease.
Therefore let me use the good health that I have
while I have it, presuming nothing.
Let me use it to serve well, to love well,
to care for your people, your creation,
to spend my allotted days
cherishing hearts,
creating beauty,
bringing order,
offering healing,
delighting in your goodness manifest to me in a
million ways, and so to one day come to the end
of my days having stewarded them well.
Heal my body from this sickness,
O Christ My Healer.
Be gracious.
Give rest.
Raise me again to health with a heightened
sense of thankfulness for the unmerited gift
of well-being, and also with a greater sense
of compassion for those who suffer lingering
ailment, disease, or discomfort. Teach me by my
own small sufferings to be a better minister and
friend to those who suffer greatly.
So let even the unease I feel today
work as your servant, accomplishing
your better purposes in me.
Amen.

A LITURGY FOR A Sick Day
F R O M T H E B O O K
E V E RY M O M E N T H O LY
COPYRIGHT © 2017
D O U G L A S M C K E LV E Y

I’ve been playing with my iPhone to see if I could get a decent night/star photo. There’s a fair amount of ambient light, especially coming from the city of Albuquerque off to the lower right in the picture below.

Here’s a black and white version with an arrow pointing to Orion’s Belt…

I’m not sure what the streaks are in each version. The color version streak is lower center and the black and white version streak is on the left. Usually when you pick up a plane you can see the color of the lights as part of the streak. Who knows?

Not really, but it looks like Jessie may be admiring her self…