just us chickens

-A stunning, cotton candy sunset.

-Reading a bit of Annie Dillard as I sermonate on Isaiah 64 for Sunday:

There was no formerly heroic times and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware: a people who scheme, promote, deceive and conquer: who pray for their loved ones and long to escape misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea – that people knew God personally once upon a time — or even knew selflessness or courage or literature — but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to every one in every age. There was never a more holy age than ours, and never a less.  

...And later in the afternoon, as irony would have it, I saw a chicken wandering around the Goodwill parking lot.  I immediately thought, "there's no one here but us chickens" and giggled a little.

-The moving company giving me loads of boxes for free, including wonderful wardrobe boxes with hanging bars in them for clothes.  It's such a kind thing when people go out of their way to be helpful.  When I arrived to pick up boxes, the woman who works in the office came out and said, "Are you Whitney, who called about the boxes?" like she was excited to be seeing an old friend.  She cheerfully gave me plenty and wished me a great day.