Birnam Wood

Never Fear!
It's just Gerry and Grandpa Ron
rearranging the trees in the yard!

"Who can impress the forest, bid the tree / Unfix his earthbound root?"
Gerry and Ron -- that's who!
************

Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.

That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earthbound root? Sweet bodements! Good!
Rebellious dead, rise never till the wood
Of Birnam rise . . .

IV, i, 96 - 103
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Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. . . .

I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

V, iii, 2 - 3, 59 - 60
************

As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move. . . .

I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.

V, v, 35 - 36, 41 - 45
from Shakespeare's Macbeth
************

Look how beautiful the zinnias were in 2005!
I hope we'll have such good luck this year!
And see Josef, out enjoying the day -- to the right?
And to the left, a football!

I especially love this one of Josef and
Grandma Rosanne, out for a walk! ~ Fall 2006

And Dear Old Josef, Sunning Himself On the Deck ~ Fall 2006

Happy Arbor Day
& Belated Birthday to Shakespeare!

Courage

Sam and Karen Riding the Steel Hawg at Indiana Beach
July 2008 (photograph by Ben McCartney)
COURAGE
Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy
can hear the sound of wings.

Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul's dominion.
Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair.

poem by Amelia Earhart,
record - setting American aviation pioneer and author
(b. 1897 - declared dead in 1939, after
disappearing over the Pacific in 1937)

Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and receive the Distinguished Flying Cross; she joined the renowned aviation program at Purdue University in 1935 as a visiting faculty member, advisor to aeronautical engineering, and career counselor to women students

*****
I can't imagine what it would be like to be as brave as Amelia!

Remember what Helen Keller said:
"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run
than outright exposure. The fearful are caught
as often as the bold."

But I've never felt so sure about that.

Then there is this motto from Isak Dinesen
(and others before and after her):
"Be bold, but not too bold."

Okay, time to screw my courage to the sticking - place . . .

P.S. ~ February 2018
Shared by Pastor Lana J. Robyne
Co-Director at Purdue Wesley Foundation

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear more times than I can remember, but I hid it, a mask of boldness. The brave (person) is not (one) who does not feel afraid, but (one) who conquers that fear.”
~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu ~