Stubble, Toil & Trouble

****Stubble, Stubble, Toil, and Trouble!****

During a snowy winter, cornfields resemble pale skin covered with bristly whisker stubble, the remnants of cornstalks which remain rooted in the ground after harvest. This photo is way too pink, but the color helps remind me that spring and summer flowers will be here eventually.

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In my Six-on-Six post of two days ago, I mentioned my junior varsity basketball coach who was also our English teacher. In her sophomore English class we read "Antigone", "Romeo & Juliet", "Our Town", "Twelve Angry Men".......and "MacBeth".

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"Double, double, toil, and trouble.....", of course, was a phrase repeated by the three witches in MacBeth. I don't remember much else about this Shakespeare play, except for two clever aspects of it that our teacher emphasized. Both had to do with prophecies that the witches spoke concerning MacBeth himself:

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"....laugh to scorn the power of man,

for none of woman born shall harm MacBeth."

and

"MacBeth shall never vanquish'd be until

Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill

Shall come against him."

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In this tale, MacBeth was content in believing his view of what these prophecies were referring to, and felt safely out of harm's way. Of course, later on, into MacBeth's life did come harm.......via a man not of woman born....... and after Great Birnam wood came to high Dunsinane hill! One scenario existed already, and the other came to pass, in a way that MacBeth did not expect. And yet it had been right there, all the time, accurately, in the weird sisters' forecast.

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Anyway, our teacher emphasized these clever elements of Shakespeare's plot. I haven't thought about the story for years, but it came to mind the other day when I was writing that basketball post.

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As far as TV goes, I watch very little.......a few shows on PBS, occasionally Law & Order (the original and C.I.), and Medium. Monday's episode of the latter show was a good one. I especially enjoyed the subplot involving the middle daughter, Bridget. Bridget's earnest concern for a stranger was refreshing.

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While her parents were busy one day, Bridget had answered the phone and talked with a credit card representative for several minutes. That night, she had a dream that this credit card employee's house was going to be broken into. Bridget was very worried about this and matter-of-factly asked her dad to please call the credit card company and tell this man to lock his back door! Joe, her dad, tried to tell Bridget that it would be futile to attempt to find this man, because the credit card company has thousands of employees. But, Bridget did know the man's name; she had found that out during their phone conversation. Joe eventually did give in and called the credit card company and they tracked down the employee and found he lived in India, working as a phone representative for their company. They did get ahold of the man.......and then, as is my habit usually from about 9:30 to 9:45 p.m. during the show, I dozed off.......when I awoke, the man was calling to thank Joe and Bridget for helping him.

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Anyway......why am I talking about this fictional,trivial TV show? Its because I believe that things like this can and do happen. Its not eerie and spooky and unbelievable......it is a real possibility. We live our lives too much like MacBeth and not enough like Bridget......we don't see the truth of what's there and what is possible. We fail to look closely, deeply, and see the possibilities. There are caring connections between people, and those connections are forged and accessed, not only in concrete ways that we are accustomed to, but also in other seemingly mysterious ways that we're just beginning to recognize. To quote the cow in the movie "Babe": "The fact is, the way things are is the way things are."

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I hope today brings you.......easy toil and little trouble!!!!