sixth seal update

When I went to bed last night, my sheets smelled like campfire smoke. And pretty much everyone in the greater San Jose area woke up this morning to find ash and soot all over everything–especially noticeable on cars. I went to a bridal shower this morning (another wedding!) in a woman’s backyard, and she’d set up these little begonia flower pots on the tables last night, and they had ashes on them too. The ash, of course, came from the smoke-clouds of doom last night. Oh, and I heard that the smoke and ash weren’t from the fire in the Santa Cruz mountains, but another forest fire somewhere else. I was watching the news the other day, and it showed a map of northern California, with little flame pictures where there were raging forest fires, and I swear it was a ring of fire with San Jose right in the middle. No wonder we had smoke-clouds of doom yesterday. I just wonder why we haven’t been having them all along.

And, of course, the ashes falling out of the sky make me think of brimstone. Creepy. Maybe I’m just morbid.

The Angel of Death

Last night, at a quarter to eleven, we shut off our attic fan, closed all our windows, and put the metal slat down so our dog couldn’t go out through the doggie door. Soon we could hear the hum of the helicopter up above, dusting the poison meant for West Nile-laden mosquitoes over our heads, and we could smell the faintest hint of chemicals seeping into the house. My fanciful imagination and I couldn’t help thinking it was the angel of death from Moses’ day passing over us (see Exodus 12:22-29). Except there was no blood on our lintel. And for just a moment, I thought someone might come in today to find us dead in our beds.

(And that’s funny I should think of Moses when the point of the poison is to eradicate West Nile Virus, which also came out of Egypt, it sounds like)

Fanciful imagination notwithstanding, I made it through the night alive. And so did my family. And so did everyone else in the neighborhood, I guess. Well, hopefully not the mosquitoes.