Pen-demic

On the calendar there won’t be an end date No bright, festive day to celebrate Instead, a slow pull out of the darkness We stumble and fumble out of this mess No one person or group is to blame Many voices spoke and opined, but often sounded the same It seems looking back, there was too little preparation At many times, too much misinformation You ask, what will our life be like on the other side? Can we trust the politicians or scientists to be our guide? I know the reassurance that you seek Is that life will flip back to a pre-pandemic week This I cannot tell you. But I offer up hope, love, and a determination to find our new glorious life . Linda Larimer Photo by   Aaron Burden   on   Unsplash

Remember O Lord what has befallen upon your people. Look and see our disgrace The lovely earth you gave us contaminated Children dying from cancer and rare disease Communities destroyed by flooding, earthquakes, volcanos, Tsunamis, Tornados, and Fires that  You sent to wake us from our sinful ways. Cities ravaged by a pandemic, Losing lives, businesses, jobs and self worth We cannot even come together to honor and remember our dead Our ancestors sinned, they are no more, yet the iniquities of their sins stay with us. They revered advancement, yet with it they polluted and contaminated the earth. Our children die not just from bombs, but poisons that have seeped into the earth and water Reminding us that our ancestors chose to value material possessions and technological advances over You, O Lord As a frozen wasteland grips us, our brothers and sisters are on the streets rather than our helping them with their mental, physical and financial traumas. Our streets have burned with the ...

  Food is the ingredient that binds us together. As I quickly picked up a handful of groceries at Schnucks a month or so ago, I glanced down at the refrigerated items in the middle cooler. The jars of Kraft Pimento Spread immediately drew my eyes. My family had purchased and emptied enough of those tiny glass jars during my childhood that we had repurposed them as our water cups. On any normal grocery run, I would have concerned myself with the nutritional value (or lack thereof) and passed on this pimento spread. Instead, I snatched one out of the cooler and backtracked to the cracker aisle to pair it with Triscuits. Just as I had many years ago, when I returned home from the grocery store, I loaded a plate full of Triscuits slathered with pimento cheese. It threw me back to memories of weekends when my dad was working and my mom, sister, and I were hanging out at my grandparents’ house. My Grandma and Grandpa Trulove maintained a stock of the best snacks—twizzlers, bing cherries,...