God Was Vexed, and Gave All Power to Michael*

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We should have put a storm notice up yesterday afternoon, but we were too lazy — Dymphna and I scamped our duties. And then Hurricane Michael dropped by the southeastern Piedmont and laid us low.

The center of the storm passed by quite a ways to the south of us, somewhere in North Carolina. However, it sent a long writhing arm our way, and we were lashed with wind (not too much) and rain (a lot — six inches [16 cm]). We were lucky: we didn’t lose our electricity, but many thousands of others did. There are still wide swaths of Central Virginia without power tonight.

Our Internet connection gave out in the late afternoon, however, and stayed off for more than 24 hours. The torrential rain must have seeped into the equipment and shorted out the transverse hypertonic fimbrilator or something. Or maybe a family of raccoons escaped the high water, gnawed their way through the wall of the server box, and made a nice comfy dry nest inside on top of the digital switching unit.

Anyway, that’s why we disappeared for a day. Dymphna is approving your comments even as I type this. I’ll merge last night’s news feed material with tonight’s, and I prepared several posts and queued them up, waiting until the Intertubes were fixed. Maybe I’ll enlist the younger raccoons to help me put them up quickly…

*   The title is a reference to this poem by Wilfred Owen:

Soldier’s Dream

I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears;
And caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts;
And buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts;
And rusted every bayonet with His tears.

And there were no more bombs, of ours or theirs,
Not even an old flint-lock, nor even a pikel.
But God was vexed, and gave all power to Michael;
And when I woke he’d seen to our repairs.

 

4 thoughts on “God Was Vexed, and Gave All Power to Michael*”

    • Michael the Archangel:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_(archangel)

      The original intercessor, an ancient Jewish figure taken up by Christianity (and later by Islam).

      Thus, from England, we have the Michaelmas daisy. It used to bloom reliably in my garden on or around his feast day but the last few years, that lazy flower doesn’t show its pale pink face until October sometime. I can see dozens of buds, but no flowers yet.

      Mexico Beach, on the Florida panhandle, must feel they’ve been visited by him.

      • In Robert A Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” (arguably his best), the central character, Mike (an Earthman raised by Martians) is the Archangel Michael visiting for a while.

        If you don’t know it, get a copy!

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