February 24: Flash Flood, God's Thumbprint, Disappointing News

Later I lay half out of my sleeping bag on a narrow shelf of flat ground between the cottage porch and the bank to the dam.  I lay where a flash flood would reach me, but we have had a flood; the time is late.  The night was clear; when the fretwork of overhead foliage rustled and parted, I could see the pagan stars.

Dillard is camping out under the stars, doing what Dillard does:  listening to the drill of cicadas and crickets, thinking about eels slithering overland from ponds and creeks to rivers, contemplating the universe in all its wondrous and terrifying strangeness.  Above all, she sees God's thumbprint on everything, I think, from a mosquito sucking blood from a copperhead's head to a thunderstorm crashing through a mountain pass.

I'm not sure what I want to say about God's thumbprint tonight.  I'm not even sure why that particular passage from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek called to me just now.  Wednesdays are the longest days of the week for me.  I start at the medical office at 7 a.m. and end my day at the university around 9:30 p.m.  At the moment, I can barely keep my eyes open, so I'm not really looking for divine dermal ridges on anything.

Got some disappointing news this afternoon.  Had to do with my job in the medical office.  I don't want to go into detail, but let's just say that I am feeling a little stuck right now.  Stuck and exhausted and a little sorry for myself.  So, pretty much nothing has changed; today's news just reinforced already existing knowledge.

Now, where is God's thumbprint in all this stuckage?  I'm not sure, but I am also sporting a fairly jaded view of the world this evening.  I'm sure there's a reason for disappointment in God's plan.  There's the old saying that God never closes a door without opening a window. 

Saint Marty is looking for his window.

Speaking of a dead end job . . .