the cost of butterflies

This year has been a breeze in the tomato garden. Not a single horned tomato-killer/piller in sight! I did see one dried out carcass which had been taken out by braconid wasp eggs. . . . It appears that I have broken the cycle here, at least for one year. If I have no hummingbugs, at least I also have no tomato hornworms. It's a price I'm willing to pay. We have tons of hummingbirds - I'll live with no hummingbugs.

Butterflies, on the other hand, I'd be sorry to part with. We have a plethora. Yellow ones, orange ones, black ones, blue ones, white ones. OK - the white ones are moths, technically. I've written about them before. They're the ones who decimate the cabbage. And the kale. Not the butterflies, of course, the caterpillars. But without the caterpillars, there are no butterflies. . . .

This year, I was a lot more tolerant of the damage being done to the cabbage and kale by the munching caterpillars. I had planted the cabbage among the basil and parsley, and if I used chemical warfare (the only thing that really works) that meant I couldn't eat the basil or parsley for several weeks. I decided to give up on the thought of controlling the caterpillars on the cabbage so I could eat the basil and parsley, and hoped for the best. Several of the cabbages succumbed, but several others made it to table and the kale yielded regular fronds for soups, salads, and veggie portions. And I've always enjoyed the white cabbage moths flitting about the garden. They're so cheerful looking! Maybe there's something to this 'live and let live' attitude after all.

I've been looking forward to the arrival of the big butterflies and in the last few weeks, they've come on in droves. The other day I was horrified, however, to see one of my sunflowers being systematically stripped of all its leaves by an assortment of caterpillars. All fuzzy, in a wide range of colours. My first thought was - yes - chemical warfare. Death to the destructos! My second thought was "well, if I want butterflies, I have to endure the caterpillars." I consigned the sunflower to its fate. The cost of butterflies.

As it was, the caterpillars didn't kill the sunflower. They hadn't really started eating its leaves until the sunflower had bloomed, fed the bumblebees and started to fade, its petals drying to raffia and the middle of the flower turning to seeds destined to feed the songbirds here at the greenwood. A few of those seeds, of course, will be saved to plant in the spring. Cycle repeat.

No, it's not nice to have the ragged plant in my garden, ravaged by caterpillars, leaves turning yellow and brown where there are leaves at all. It's a small price to pay, though, to sustain the cycle. When the caterpillars had finished their work, they disappeared and I cut the sunflower down. I feel a bit like a murderer. They're taller than I am, with heads as large.

'Unless a seed falls to the ground and 'dies'. . . .'

There's no stopping the cycle at any one stage. The flower will wither and if I deny its leaves to the caterpillars, all I do is deny myself the joy of butterflies. And if I cut the flowers before they have been pollinated by the bees and matured, I deny myself food for the songbirds I love to see and hear, and seeds to plant next year. And if I will not harvest the sunflowers when they have dried and started to fall over, then the wind and the rain and the birds will scatter the seeds. They will either be eaten now, or rot, or if they hang on to next year, I'll be dealing with volunteer sunflowers in the paths and in between the boxwoods. They may or may not spring up where they are welcome and have sufficient soil to grow. Meanwhile, there are birds who will be looking for seed in the feeder in January and February.

Part of growing a garden, then, is tolerating ugliness. That is not at all what our culture says. Ugliness is to be rooted out. Sprayed. Eradicated. We can have it all, we are told. Beautiful fruit and leaves and seed - all at the same time - and never mind the cost. In fact, what cost? Life is beautiful. Just don't look behind the curtain. Don't question how the roses in stores are grown so big, so beautiful, with leaves with nary a spot or blemish on them. Or the sunflowers at the supermarket: each perfect, none contaminated by the touch of any bug, let alone the munchings of a caterpillar. I begin to see their perfection as a deathcamp. Neither fertile nor food. Poisoned. Their "beauty" pales when I consider what chemicals enabled it.

I have written before that growing one's own food has made me much more tolerant of imperfections. Now, I learn to tolerate even ugliness. Everything, in its season. We don't want the seasons, though, do we? We want the cool when it's hot, and the hot when it's cold. We want to be young forever, and to be wise without the years. We want to keep our options open and to be able to be where we are not. We 'conquer' time and space with facebook, skype and instant messages and wonder why we never really talk any more. Talk, sitting down, face to face, munching on the produce of the garden with the messiness of dishes afterwards and a greasy grill.

The cost of butterflies, indeed.

The title notwithstanding, I reject the utilitarian cost/benefit framework. No, I see this squarely within an Aristotelian conception of the good life, helping me to make sense of what I would not easily call "good" absent a wider perspective. It's the wider perspective which, in the end, leads to the transcendent, and the transcendent, to God. Because like the grass and the flowers, we, too, fade. . . .

four years ago today. . . .

. . . . from the archives:


Today's is Elizabeth Perry's 1000th consequtive posting of sketches and musings over at Woolgathering and as part of her online celebration, I am posting my own sketch.

I lost my wedding band this spring
[which would have been the spring of 2007].
I was out in the garden, preparing urns for a new batch of annuals to be nestled in with the evergreen ivy. It wasn't until hours later - washing my hands - that I realized it was gone.

"Where were you?" he asked, when I came back in an hour later, still crying, still without it. I shrugged, helplessly. I'd been everywhere. We looked everywhere. We dug up everything I'd planted. We sieved the dirt. Over the next week we bought and read the manual for a metal detector and struggled manfully with said detector. We dug up the plants again. I cried some more.

I wrote about it; dreamed about it; prayed about it; pondered the why's and wherefore's of it. Not to mention the where-the-hell-is-it?!!'s. I couldn't find it and it didn't turn up. We still look for it, walking in the garden. My empty left ring finger was a mute accusation of my carelessness. How could I not have felt it slip off?! Strangely, I felt like I had failed as a wife. This was the symbol of our marriage - our treasure - and I had proven untrustworthy in guarding it. I lost it! Way to go. . . .

No, I didn't tell the king that. But neither did I press to get another one made. I started feeling unreliable with respect to my engagement ring and rarely put that on. . . . Fine. I didn't wear rings before I got married - just a few years ago - so what's the big deal? I won't wear rings now. Clearly, I'm not to be trusted with them.

Still, when I least expected it, a wave of loss would wash over me and I would finger my married ring finger, feeling the missing ring like I hear people who've lost limbs still feel them. How silly to feel such desolation over a ring. A piece of metal. OK - platinum metal, and have you checked the prices on platinum lately?! But still. I just missed my ring.

Last week, in the middle of dissertation hell, the king and I went out onto the porch for a happy hour glass of wine before dinner. The squirrels have been at work in my garden and urns, busily burying and unburying nuts and such. I scolded one of them who came within earshot: "I better not catch you in my urns! I'll whup your butt!" The king and I laughed. "Unless, of course, you find and return my ring," I added. "Then you can dig in the urns all you want!"

"You really think you're going to get it back, don't you?" the king asked.

"Well, I hope I will." I said. "I'd kind of lost hope there, for a while, but now I find myself looking again, quite expectantly. Almost as if it will be brought to me and left on the front steps. . . . But I haven't found it yet." I smiled. So did he. He went inside a moment and came back out.

"I didn't know when to give this to you." he said. "Now seems the best time." He placed a little box on the concrete bench we use as our coffee table on the porch. I started crying. (and I've started crying again, thinking about it. . . .)

I can't believe he had another ring made for me. Just like the first one. The one that's lost in our garden. The one that matches his.

This one is just a little different, though - I can't quite put my finger on it. But it's growing on me. Like a second chance.

*******************
Thank you, my dear king.
(four years later)
xoxoxo

herbes de le bois vert

Somehow I've always thought that the fall was the proper harvest time. I'd been wondering how I would get through the summer without buying another tin of herbes de Provence before I could properly harvest the greenwood herbs and start making my own greenwood blend. We grow all the required herbs here, after all, and it's not all that difficult to dry them and mix them together in a blend I can keep on hand to use most everyday!

The herb garden has become horrendously overgrown, however, so yesterday - midsummer - I took my shears to it. There are a lot of herbs!

The oregano in particular was invading all its neighbors and had to be dealt with, with a severe hand. Likewise, the thyme. They're all washed and bundled now, drying. With any luck, I'll have another harvest in the fall.

Meanwhile, I have to decide upon the best recipe to combine the herbs. There are as many recipes as there are people who make the concoction. As I do not intend to try and slavishly copy my idea of the proper "French" mix, though, I shall take a free approach to it. The herbs I usually cook with are rosemary, thyme and savory. I'll use them in approximately equal proportions (25% each of the whole), and add in lavender, tarragon, sage, oregano and basil to make up the remaining 25%. A lot of the blends available here in the States also include dried garlic. Oh no. The garlic must always be fresh!

I'll certainly have a new batch of herbes de Provence before my last tin of the commercial blend runs out. But it's not herbes de Provence, is it? It's herbs of the greenwood: herbes de le bois vert.

I can hardly wait.

the making of a sock monkey

Found in the attic of my mother some time ago: a pair of vintage red-heeled socks, together with the original instructions for making a sock monkey. They had belonged to my grandmother - to Nana - who had a fondness for making small stuffed critters. For a reason I cannot imagine, she never got around to making this particular one.

Actually, I can imagine why she never made this sock monkey. Believe it or not, I think the only reason I was able to make the sock monkey at this particular point in time is because of my recent experience steeking! I kid you not. I am a knitter - Nana was a knitter (heck, she was the one who taught me) - and most normal knitters can not bring themselves to cut their knitting. The thought alone sends them shrieking from the room.

As a result, the sock monkey socks sat in Nana's stash, unused, for years. (You guessed it: making the sock monkey involves cutting the knitted sock. . . .) Upon her death, the socks eventually came to me (and that was a while ago) and have sat in my stash until just this point in time, where the anticipated arrival of a grandson, coupled with the failure of the world to stop revolving upon the happening of the cutting [oh horror!] of knitting, combined with the love of our daughter-in-law for monkey toys (and our love for her) to push me over the edge and induce me to find and finally make up Nana's vintage sock monkey.

That would make this a present from his great, great grandmother to baby Torre!

If I can pry it away from Luther, that is.

one week till Easter

The daffodils are out - but I have no pictures! We have more this year than last, though. Daffodils, that is.


You may recall we had a daffodil planting party in the fall - here's the link and while I'm linking, here are some pictures from last year's daffodils. They look much the same this year - although somehow we seem to have only two varieties this year: bright yellow big ones and white with pale yellow slightly smaller ones. I'm thinking perhaps the more unusual ones I marvelled over last year are later bloomers?

Oh, but the really pretty one from last year has succumbed already to the depredations of a toddler, who snapped off that bloom and clutched it in her chubby fists to bring inside and float in a bowl of water.

We had a lot of toddlers here yesterday - six, counting one mostly out of toddler range and another, just entering it. I'm not used to this! It was fun though. Luther was hard to convince that these were not exquisite play toys for him - the wind-up running and shrieking tots were very hard for him to resist! He stole their toys and periodically knocked a few kids sprawling when he got a chance. . . . He's sleeping now, gathering his energy.

Meanwhile, I found my copy of a Haggadah for the Passover Seder - the last supper of Jesus. I was astonished to see that it was illustrated by Leonard Baskin! I grew up with a painting by him of some other guy - or was it by some other guy of him? I can't remember now. It's always been a favorite of mine. It's of a face, but as a child, i thought it was of two kids and a maypole.

Yeah. Don't ask. It was years, though, before I could see a face in the frame. I still love the picture.

Anyway - Baskin did the illustrations for a Passover Haggadah, and I have a copy. Here's a link to look inside.

Yes, we'll incorporate some Passover elements into our Easter celebrations this year. I'll never forget the first time I experienced a Jewish Seder. It drove home to me the profound connection between 'Judeo' and 'Christian', something both sides tend to forget.

Meanwhile, I've mostly finished Elizabeth Zimmerman's green sweater - mine's off-white - and I'm working on a white bathroom mat from Glampyra's yarn made from T-shirts! Very cool stuff. I have pictures.

Later.

___________________
*illustration above is from "My Objection to Being Stepped On" By Robert Frost. Wood engravings by Leonard Baskin, 1957

privacy settings

Facebook has revamped its privacy settings, allowing you to control who-sees-what of what you post there. I can now post pictures, for example, that only my mother can see. I can post the link to an article just for my liberal friends, and another article for the conservative ones. Or I can post under the 'default' setting - which is 'everyone'.

Blogs have no such controls. If you post it, it's posted. "Privacy Settings" are exercised by not posting. . . .

All this is by way of explaining why I haven't been posting lately. I imagine that words and pictures that include other people inevitably give rise to differing privacy expectations. As soon as I sort out the different expectations, I'll be back.

Meanwhile, there's a Christmas tree at the Greenwood.
It's the first Christmas tree I've put up since Nana died - and that's been a long time ago now. She died on Thanksgiving Day, 1992 I think it was. I'll have to check with my brother, our family's 'historian'. He remembers things like that. I remember sitting in the library of the I house I lived in then, playing Moonlight Sonata on the white piano stenciled with what turned out to be poison ivy vines. I was crying. I remember peeling potatoes into a paper sack in the living room, overcome then with feeling and the words: "It's all right. Everything is all right." And crying again. But a good crying that time. Smiling and tears. . . . and then the phone call that she was gone.

On the tree are little knitted mice - like she might have made, except I did. And stars. The one on top is knitted! Yes, he's rotund. Delightfully so!
Then: old keys. I've collected them for years. Perhaps it's a privacy thing, but from the opposite perspective: I am fascinated with what they might open. . . .

in which the studio is opened . . . and closed again

Luther has a blue spot on his left forearm. Right, as you're looking at him.

"A bruise?" I thought, involuntarily, before I collected my thoughts.

"A sunspot." I'd been peering out the french doors into a courtyard made brilliant by the early morning sun and then looked down at Luther, who was regally crouched at my feet in his best stone lion pose, mistress and hound in the wave-farewell-to-the-king ritual. Sunspot - do you know, those purpleish spots you see before your eyes when you glance away from a brightly lit object? - but this spot was stationary, not darting about with my eyes.

Oh. I remember. I guess it did leave a mark.

No, Luther does not have a bruise. I'm the one who gets bruises from him - bruises we can see, anyway - I guess Luther might get bruises underneath his fur from his own wild antics. . . . But this was not a bruise.

Yesterday, the sky was crisp and clear and achingly blue. The weekly visit to the king-mum had been accomplished and we celebrated with a glass of wine and an inspection of the garden before settling down at a small table in dappled shade. I had thrown open the studio to air it out and with renewed intentions to really get working in there! I've taken Cindy's advice and divided the space into 4 different zones of influence. Five, if you count the little four-poster bed, but I don't.

Walking in, there's art on the near left, gardening on the far, and music on the near right, with textiles and sewing beyond. The four-poster shares space with music, but gets involved in all the other spaces too, except perhaps for gardening. I like to recline. . . . but it's also handy for laying out new quilt designs, or for viewing new pictures, and yes, for gardening too, as I try to make sense of a workable plan for a garden next year. This year's garden had its moments, but there's no getting around it: I have to tackle the mess the builder left in the one reliably sunny spot I'd always planned for the garden. The soil there is multi-colored, white in some spots, yellow in others, and some cement gray. With rain, black sludge forms, followed by algae that starts bright green, but then rusts out. Several species of die-hard weeds and grasses have managed to set up modest colonies here and there. Well, if I've learned anything this year, it's to do the preparation work before you bring in plants. I now have a whole fall and long winter to do grueling preparations. The four-poster will figure heavily in the planning stages.

I digress.

That's what usually happens when I go into the studio. On any given day, I can fall into any number of transportations, be it flights of colour, line, sound. . . . texture. . . . word. Yesterday, it was still all about the garden, though, and the king and I discussed the prospects of the boxwood, given the unusually heavy rains in late summer, and wondered about the crape myrtles, only one of which has flowered, so far, fitfully.

Luther was being suspiciously quiet. That usually means he's up to no good. The one thing that is reliably capable of sending me into a rage is the sight of his having dug out and then shaken to death a plant I've been coaxing along in these inhospitable soils right around the house. I've got a small start on some ground cover on the far side of the studio which he's had his eye on, so I finally got up. As I walked around the studio, he was standing out in the middle of the worst of the toxic flats, just looking at me. I checked all the new plantings - all looked untouched - and I looked back at Luther. He looked guilty, but I didn't know what of.

"C'mon boy. You come over here and lie down with us and stay out of trouble!" He came over, and I guided him with my hands back towards our table. As I reached for my wine again, I noticed I had blue all over my hands.

"What in the world?!"

"He's probably gotten himself a pen out of the studio." the king said. Right. That sounded right, only I couldn't find it. The blue washed off readily, however, so maybe it wasn't ink. I returned to the table. One thing about Luther that I have learned to appreciate is that he is not usually secretive about his depredations. If he knows he's not supposed to get into something (or has serious doubts) he will usually drag the thing into view, drop it, and then stand there looking at you. If you don't say anything - or are not paying attention - he will proceed with the shredding. He is ignored at your peril.

As we sat at table, Luther disappeared again and then reappeared, this time in the front pasture, carrying something small and white.

"Drop it!" I yelled, and he complied, but started the beginnings of the conquered-foe-celebration dance, which involves lunges, stompings, snappings, and shaking the thing before throwing it into the air with rapid fire castenets-like snapping and then the final shredding.

"Leave it!" I warned, and moved towards him. He snapped at the object and flung it into the air, but then backed away. Great. It was one of my tubes of paint. Well, that explains the blue, doesn't it? I picked up the tube and closed up the studio. Then I scouted around until I found a blotch of blue on the earth where Luther had been standing earlier and scooped up the disemboweled tube for a decent burial.

Like the garden, I have a lot of preparation work to do in the studio before it'll be safe for anything else to flourish in that space. . . .

Meanwhile, poor Luther has been put out of the doghouse, which we'd taken to calling the studio, given his love of lounging there on his big-boy bed. I only hope that we don't see any more blue today, in other applications. The blue of the sky is, of course, always an exception.

. . . on Christmas Day in the mornin'

Start the music (click in the center on the arrow) and it will play as you read and scroll through the pictures below. It's one of the songs we sang around the dinner table after the meal (while the 2 'grown-up' boys of the king got an attack of the giggles - grin!)

Christmas Day has come and gone already - but what a day it was!

The early morning sun before the day really got going was spectacular. The light was green and golden.



Here's just an assortment of pictures of some of the characters who assembled at the Greenwood.



Luther is missing his tartan bowtie, by the way, in case anyone comes across it.



For those of you visiting from A Simple Yarn, yes, every houndstooth scarf you see is part of the wonderful stash we commissioned from Cheryl. . . .

See how perfect?







Here's a close-up of the one for my brother.
Now, more people:









On Christmas Day in the mornin'. . . .

greenwood chronicle - being the first. . . .

The arrival of Leaping Laird d'Lux Luther has brought about a pretty dramatic change in our lives. To say the least.

I don't know who's learning more, me or Luther.

Yes, he's learning/learned all about 'potty' and 'doing the business' outside. . . . 'come', 'heel', 'leave it', 'stand', 'back', 'lie down', 'stay' and 'NO!' are all words in play - at least - if not acknowledged commands, commands which lead to the commanded action [or inaction].

What I've learned: leash and poo-bags should be close at hand at all times.

I've learned that I have to be careful what I allow the wee lad, as he will escalate it. Viz., what I thought was a cute playful attack on a peony blossom quickly turned into all-out war on all flowers and plants. His first conquest - a red peony blossom pulled off the bush - has had amazingly long-life, and he pounces on the spent blossom every time we enter the back yard. I've never seen a longer-lived blossom! Every peony I've ever cut has promptly shed all its petals within a day, if not immediately. This thing is now like a dried red pom-pom, and I haven't quite had the heart to take it from him, he seems so proud of it.

Unfortunately, he also still tends to go for the few now-dried peonies that remain on the bush. "Leave it! only gets you so far.

I've learned that he has atrocious judgment with respect to what he will put in his mouth (a), chew (b), and actually swallow (c). I have been trying to keep a very close eye on him because I'm not entirely sure he won't kill himself! A recent arrival of rather smelly mulch at our rental house makes me wonder what's on it. Luther seems to like it. I know he likes chewing it, but it appears he might also be swallowing it. . . . That can't be good for him. That, or the rocks, or the concrete, or the brick he likes to gnaw on.

I've had three things on my mind: (1) don't let him even start doing something you're not going to let him continue doing, (2) consistency: don't ever let him learn that he can get away with something if he just keeps on trying until he wears me down, and (3), be careful that the corrections themselves don't teach him something even worse. So I try to remember that clapping - or yelling - when he barks effectively "celebrates" that behavior, and he can be expected to bark all the more. Likewise, when he whines. I can be "rewarding" his whining by arriving on demand [as far as he knows] and seeking to quiet him by "comforting" him.

"Look how he misses me. . . ."

Right. Look how he's just learned how to get me to come when he calls!

It wasn't a very far step for me to see how my relationship with God is very much analogous.

It's a little embarrassing to think that He's using my training a puppy to show me what a brat I have been/can be. . . . and to teach me a bit more about Himself when I consider the techniques I use in dealing with Luther.

Here at the beginning of Luther's new life with us, I have been with him almost constantly - and yet I have also scheduled times apart, as he will need to learn to be on his own, without getting into trouble. He's been safe, and we've been close at hand, and yet he's been unhappy to be alllll alllooooooone. . . . booo hoooooo. . . . .

Man, did that start to sound like me! Where are you, Father God? What have I done? Why am I allllll alllooooone. . . . .

The other thing that has been difficult for him - and therefore also for me - is that he doesn't totally get it that I've "got it": he's going to be ok. . . . he's going to have food, and people who love him, and a nice place to sleep and play, and go for walks, and toys to play with, not to mention wonderful food to eat (if only he would eat his food. . . . instead of rocks, poison mulch, bird ka-ka, rug fringe, and concrete - not to mention brick, although he may be more interested in the mortar in between, it's hard to tell). I'm in charge, and I'm going to [TRY to] take care of him, in spite of himself.

I remember one day early in my walk with God, driving to my office. I don't remember the circumstances exactly - was I was perhaps complaining or whining about something? Or maybe (more I was just quietly driving, praying, as quickly became my habit while driving. What I do remember is becoming aware of God's words - passionately "spoken" - You are Mine. Along with those words, I had the sudden realization that all the obligation and responsibility in our relationship was on HIM - that that is what He was saying, that my being His meant that He would take care of everything - that everything was really looking up for me, because He was in charge. It was not about me being enslaved, or restricted, or pent-up at God's malicious whim. It was God effectively saying: "You don't get it. You're mine, and I'm not going to lose you or let anything bad happen to you! You're mine! Remember? Relax."

I laughed right out loud! I cried. I remember the feeling of intense joy, relief and utter contentment vividly, as if it was yesterday. It was probably 14 years ago.

I wish I could explain something similar to Luther. But it is time and experience that will do that, if at all (meaning: I wish I were more capable of ensuring that I won't lose him or let anything bad happen to him. . . . ) In the meantime, then, I have to make sure as best as I can that - over time - Luther's experience is a good one. That he learns the proper cause and effect, and that I am faithful to continue to keep him away from what will hurt, kill and maim him, and faithful to continue to encourage those actions that will be of benefit to him both when he is with me, as well as when he is [momentarily] on his own.

I was cooking this morning when all this came clear. All would yet be well, and we would go play, but right now, he needed to learn to chill out and just be. Just wait. Just trust. Just hang out with me, who was right there!

He did well, did little Luther. He whined several times. He got disciplined for persisting in trying to pull my apron off its hook. He successfully left the door stop alone, which I've been teaching him not to chew - for that, he got a treat. He discovered a fly and had a great time trying to catch it, during the course of which he almost learned to open the screen door. . . . It was a close call. I do not wish him to learn that lesson!

I locked the screen.

Looking again to my life, I can see where God has locked my screen door in the past. I thought of the many times I've doubted God's hand in where I was at the moment. Was I in the right place? Doing the right thing? At the right time? Or was I missing out, somehow? Did I need to go somewhere else, or work harder, or grab hold more firmly?

I finally begin to catch just a glimpse of the 'life of faith' so many Christian writers talk about. In many ways, it's not all that different than Luther's life with us, except of course that poor Luther isn't dealing with God, he's dealing with little ole me, a fallen being albeit made in God's image. . . .

It's written in ancient scripture that without faith, it's impossible to please God. Lux Luther has shown me how that's true. Conversely, he's also shown me how how pleased I imagine God can be when I do have faith that God IS, that He's in control, and that 'goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, as I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. . . .'

Let it be a lesson to you, Luther.

ooops - shhhh - he's sleeping. Finally. Thank you, Father. . . . sigh. I am pleased. And I pray God is pleased - too - with me, as I find myself quite content to just be here with Him today. For now, I just "know" that all will be - and is - well, and that I'm exactly where He wants me to be, and that when it's time to go out, or eat, or whatever, God will let me know.

Like I said: I don't know who's learning more, me or Luther.

But I'll let it be a lesson to me.