My 'Prayer-Jihad': A Crash Course in Prayer

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

“It is not particularly difficult to find thousands who will spend two or three hours a day in exercising, but if you ask them to bend their knees to God in five minutes of prayer they protest that it is too long.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Seven Capital Sins)

I wonder if being restless and making myself stay put and be still for an hour would be considered "agonizing in prayer"?  It's not that I don't want to pray!  But I don't always know what I'm doing and sometimes I agonize about that.  

When I stay for an hour, I agonize about whether I am praying in a way that is effective - I don't usually hear anything, even after I have let my thoughts finally settle down.  I am just grateful to be in G-d's presence, but I am not sure if my prayers are piercing heaven.  I literally get face down on the floor, then on my knees, then on the chair, then back on my knees, and I'm all over the place.  Even when I'm sitting still, my thoughts are bouncing off the walls like ping pong balls.  And to add to the effect, there is a camera in the chapel for security, so you always feel you are being "watched."

I pray the L-rd's Prayer, the rosary, the Jesus prayer, the Psalms, some scriptures, the Tabernacle prayer, and about the things that concern me, like what's going on in the world, or with people, or my life.  I write in my prayer journal.  I go around and pray the Stations of the Cross.  I sit in the back of the chapel, I sit in the front of the chapel.  I sit in the middle or on the side at the altar and under the portrait of the L-rd during his own prayer-jihad in the Garden of Gethsemane.  

I sit in front of the Tabernacle.  I even bring my small pillow and a blanket to camp out, or sit huddled through the storm in the middle of the night, imagining what it was like to be inside Noah's Ark.  I wrap my fingers around the tzitzit of a tallit.  I mostly want to get closer to G-d and learn to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.  I am restless and tired of my own thoughts until He comes!  

I especially like to walk and pray.  I hear others pray and they sound like true prayer warriors.  But I have no idea how to get there.  I want to be able to pray like the desert fathers and mothers who stayed in their cell for days, weeks, months, and went on long prayer walks in the desert.  Please L-rd, teach me to pray.  

I can say arrow prayers, I can say scripture prayers, I can read and pray the prayers of others, the prayers of the Agpeya.  I can be violently silent, but I haven’t been broken and truly and deeply effected in my prayers.  

Where are my tears for my condition, for man’s condition apart from G-d?  Where is my grief for the lost and those who are hurting and suffering, even though I care?  Why is my heart so cold and distant?  Where’s the fire?

I have a hunger and a thirst for G-d, and I am so grateful to have that.  I seek to humble myself under the hand of G-d, but where is the weeping and howling of St. Jakov/James?  Where is the red hot prayer of the righteous man Elijah?  Where are the wakeful prayers of Abouna (Father) Anthony (the Great), or the watchful prayers of Pope Shenouda III?  Or the confident, patient prayers of Abouna Andrew, my own priest?

I don’t want to live by bread alone, the things of this life, but by every word that proceeds from G-d's mouth!  Maybe this is how He learned to count the stars and know them all by name, by spending many hours in prayer, counting the stars with our names like His prayer beads.   The scriptures say that He ever lives to intercede for us in Heaven.

So if He is praying and I am praying, something should connect, which requires the Holy Spirit.

Please pray that G-d will grant me grace to grow in humility, in sorrow, in passion, in watchfulness, in wakefulness, and in the patience and persistence of effective prayer.  For now, all I have are beautiful examples, words on a page, and a heart that is willing.  Being willing is not enough, we must do.  

This is my prayer struggle, my jihad of prayer, and I am the only infidel.

A Cardinal Experience: How to Build a Nest

Today as I went to my car, which is red, I saw a female cardinal fly by and sit on top of the side mirror of a red SUV in the parking lot.  I've seen her before near my car.  She sits on top of the light post next to where I park.  It is difficult to see in this picture because of the distance, but she is sitting on top of the mirror of the SUV.  She kept flying down in front of the mirror and pecking at the glass, then she'd fly near my car and back to the mirror.  Maybe she liked the color of the red cars?  I guess even wild birds must love mirrors!  I was almost in a trance watching her, but I wasn't able to catch the picture with her in front of the mirror before she disappeared.

I sometimes wonder about the strange behavior of birds or animals, and if there is a message or meaning.  I found out that male cardinals can change their color to look like the female cardinal while the female is nesting on her eggs.  He does this to help her fill her role by gathering food for her until the eggs are hatched and the baby birds can leave the nest.  His color changes to make him less visible to predators so he can provide for his family.  So the cardinal I saw could have been a male or a female bird!

I also found this article while looking up more information about the behavior of birds:

Birds attack shiny surfaces because they see their own reflections. In the case of a window, the bird does not see through the glass: it sees a reflection of the outside, possibly trees and the sky, and another bird of its own species. The real bird does not recognize itself and mistakes the reflected bird for a competitor for territory or mates. It attacks the image in the window, trying to drive the other bird away.

Of course, this is a fruitless exercise. The bird reflection will always be there, forever inaccessible behind an invisible barrier. The real bird often returns many times, compulsively launching itself at the window. If it is very aggressive, it could damage its beak, but most often it just wastes energy and time. Very large birds may break the glass, to the distress of bird and home occupants alike.

Then I found another website with information about cardinals:

The recognition of a genuine symbolic sign can lead to the beginning of a new communication with something that is beyond our normal realm of experience. In this respect, a symbolic sign can be considered a phenomenon or, a Cardinal Experience.

Because symbolic signs are so uniquely individual, appearing in all shapes and sizes, they may not always be easily recognized as symbolic signs, or immediately understood. Symbolic signs may be presented to us in an unending array of forms: birds, animals, people, places, things or events. Whatever shape or form your symbolic sign may come in, keep in mind that the form is the messenger and the messenger is an important clue to the message.

Perhaps that is why a cardinal messenger is so often chosen to deliver such deeply significant messages to us. With his bright red color and powerful call, the cardinal tends to stand out from the crowd. There are times when it may be possible for a little red cardinal to get our attention when nothing else can, especially in times of depression and grief.

The more we learn about the messenger, the more clues we may gain about the message. While each message is special and unique to the individual, the cardinal messenger has some unique qualities of his own. Relating these cardinal qualities to your particular life situation may help you to understand more about your uniquely individual message.

Cardinal Color: One of the first and most obvious qualities about the cardinal is his color. Cardinal red is so called because it is one of the three primary colors. The primary colors are red, blue and yellow. All other colors are a combination of these three basic colors. That the visual spectrum begins with red hints at the importance of the cardinal, beginning with his powerful visual presence.

The Cardinal Cross: While we are all familiar with the symbol of the cross as it relates to the death and resurrection of Christ, the concept of the cross from the root of the word cardinal may open some new thoughts on the subject.  The oldest base root of the word cardinal is actually connected to the word cross.  The word cross comes from the Old Norse word, kross and the Latin word, crux. For the ancient Romans, the Latin word crux had comet to mean "a guidepost that gives directions at a place where one road has been split into two."  It's not hard to recognize the figure of Christ as the 'guidepost' who offers directions to travelers along the road of life.  Where one road has been split into two, can easily be seen as the crossroad we all come to at some pivotal point in our lives.  It is the place where we must make an important, cardinal choice and need guidance to do so.

On a deeper level, one road that has been split into two can also refer to our perceived separation from God.  If we are walking down a road and it splits into two, we have a choice to turn right or left.  If it is truly a cardinal crossroad, we may experience finding our guidepost at the intersection.  We may discover that there is only one road that leads to faith and unity.  Whatever we find there, we can be certain that finding ourselves at a crossroad is a cardinal opportunity to 'find our way' at the 'cross.'  The root word for cross is contained in many words we commonly use:  across, crucial, crucify, cruise (to cross the sea, or go backwards and forwards), cruiser, crusade, crux, and excruciate.  In the cardinal sense, the cross represents fourfold systems:  the four directions: north, south, east, and west; the four seasons; the four elements; the four winds; the four gospels; the four chambers of the heart; etc.

How to build a nest:

No Pink Ribbon, Just a Purple Patch -to KILL CANCER!!!

Today started out something like a purple patch day, "It was a dark and dreary morning, ..."  It really was dark and dreary out, it was rainy and chilly!  Strange weather for the middle of July in Oklahoma.

I was also dreading this day - as usual - when I have to go see my oncologist.  All the mental gymnastics are worse than the actual visit.  What will they want to do this time?  What are the results going to be?  etc., like walking through a mine field, but I tell myself it never goes the way I think and to put away the fears and use my energy to be positive and to get militant.

It's an exercise in walking the fine line between "save me?!" and "leave me alone already!"  I try to stay in the middle and save myself.  I say "I'm fine, I'm doing really great!"  Which is mostly true.  I'm so low maintenance as a patient it seems sometimes like they want to push me to do things, not because it is necessary, but because it justifies that they are doing something new to write on their paper and they feel uncomfortable if they aren't doing something more.  So far my protocol is I take one pill a day, Tamoxifen - so I haven't had to make changes, just monitor things every month.  So far, no pain, no problems.

After my blood test, the doctor went over my history and then did my exam (this exam is after a mammogram and ultrasound results in May indicating that I need to have a biopsy on my left breast).   The last time he did my exam he measured a mass of 3 cm.  The ultrasound results said it was larger than before.

This time after the exam was complete, the nurse left the room.  The doctor sat down at the computer to update the records, and then he stopped.  He had a perplexed look and said, "Huh!!"  I thought, "that doesn't sound good, I was hoping I could get out of here without any catches."  I just wanted to be let off the hook.  Leave everything the same, I feel fine.

He said, "let me go and get the nurse, I need to check something."  I thought to myself, "Oh no, let me go - just leave me alone and let me go already... I don't want to have any more biopsies, surgery, medicines, etc."  Then I thought, "I am being way too anxious.  They are only trying to help."  So I took some deep breaths and waited.

The doctor and the nurse came back in and repeated the exam and then he sat back down at the computer.  He said, after a pause, "I just wanted to be sure I was right.  Did you know that you had a mass on your breast of at least 3 cm (he whipped his measuring tool out from his coat pocket and held it up to demonstrate the size of a 3 cm mass)...

          I said, yes, I remember.

He said, well, it's not there anymore!

          I said, it's not?  I thought the mammogram and ultrasound results said it was larger than before?

He said, "well, its not there now.  There is regular tissue, but nothing irregular or solid like a mass that was there before!"

He about fell out of his chair when he was telling me, then I about fell off of the table.  I was not expecting to hear that!  I said, "Wow, I guess my medicine must be working!  See?  You're doing the right thing."

He said, "it looks like something happened.  When good happens, we don't question it!"

I didn't tell the doc that I have been taking baking soda and molasses to bring my pHd-own, or is that up, to 8.0-8.5 alkaline for a few days, which has been known to KILL CANCER!!!!  It looks like something is working!  A purple patch of victory in this case!!

I'm also thinking of a purple patch to remember my grandfather in Germany who, although he was not a Jehovah's Witness like the victims who wore this patch during the Holocaust, he was killed by Nazi SS Officers for refusing to follow protocol or show honor to Hitler (my equivalent of cancer).

My grandmother also rode her bike in winter to surrounding villages to collect food, clothing, and supplies to protect and provide for the Jewish prisoners that were being held in the factory where he was a supervisor before he was killed.  My grandmother was from Warsaw, Poland. We don't know if she was German, Polish, or Jewish, but I was told she kept the Sabbath and was raised by a Jewish family in Warsaw that she "worked for" as a child.

My grandparents hated Hitler and would have nothing to do with his regime.  When my mother was a child and came home with some flyers that she found that had been dropped as propaganda by the Nazis, my grandmother tore it from her hands and put it in the fire.  She wouldn't allow photos of Hitler or any of his influence in their home.

At one point, several SS Officers came and set up a headquarters in part of their home (which was a large summer resort in the mountains).  The arrangement was forced on my mother's family, but my grandmother set down rules for them.  She told them NO bringing women into her home, and if she caught any of the married men cheating on their wives she was going to call their wives and turn them in.  Eventually they were the ones who killed my grandfather, and their home was fire bombed to the ground by Axis Powers that may have learned their civilian home was being used as a headquarters.  All the SS Officers went into hiding, my mother was separated from her mother and didn't know where her family was until many years later.

Ballad in brown

This is a really good set of markers,
Like the ones at the hobby store.
And it has all the same colors
as the ones I saw before.

And it's only half a crown,
which makes it just right for me;
except, there's no brown!
No brown?  How could that be?

I miss brown!  I need brown!
It's the color of his eyes.
It's the color of his hair blown
As it waves against the skies.

It's the color of the tree trunk borne,
once carried through the streets;
It's the color of the crown of thorns
he wore the day he rescued me!

It's the color of the famous muddy band
wherein the mighty river Jordan
feet stepped to cross into the land
when YHWH went before them.

And what about the day before us,
when G-d made Adam, then Eve?
He formed them from the dust
of the earth, before there was any green.

I never thought about it
as my favorite color of the box;
but when you don't have it,
you realize just how much you've lost!
I can't live without brown.
So I put the markers down.
Forget about the cost!

The Beauty of Imperfection in Shakespeare

     I took a wild chance this semester and enrolled in a Shakespeare class, the only one I hadn't taken in our English Department so far; but I wanted to take Shakespeare more than the odds against it.  The odds were that the professor would be the same one I had for Chaucer.  I loved Chaucer!  I also greatly admired the professor and felt he had incredible knowledge and skill.  However, there was a weird aspect to the class.  Every time I turned in a research paper, it was like facing a lobotomy.  My papers were almost failed.  I thought it must be something I could learn from, but it was not always productive criticism.  In other classes I always get an A or occasionally a B at the least on my research papers.  There seemed to be more going on than I can explain.

     This semester, I decided to go ahead and take Shakespeare's Major Plays hoping things might go better.  The professor taught very well and I enjoyed the class very much.  Twenty Shakespeare plays in a semester is like getting to eat a whole box of chocolates in one sitting!  I made good grades all through the semester as previously in Chaucer.  The professor even read one of my papers to the class as an example of what he wanted in a paper.  I wrote on the female imagery in Henry IV.  There are only three women to speak of in the play, as well as some female imagery, so it caught my attention and he said it was different than anything he had read on the subject before.  The two research papers, however were another matter.

     I was reading Hamlet at the same time as I was having to consider possible treatments of cancer therapy, (different hormone therapy, possible radiation therapy, etc.) all of which are types of poisons.  So when I read Hamlet, the poison theme jumped out at me.  I always tend to get into the skin of the characters, so I decided to write the first research paper on the poisons in Hamlet.  My thesis was that there are some obvious references to poison in Hamlet, but that the theme of poison permeates the play in many subtle ways.  I covered each of the types of poison that were present in the play chronologically.  I enjoyed researching for and writing the paper, which was only about 23 pages.

     When I got it back, "SEE ME" was written across the top of the paper.  The paper was thrashed with ink lines, crossed out sections, and remarks, most of which were illegible.  We met and discussed the paper.  He said I would need to write a completely different research paper, which he also required most of the rest of the class to do (which also happened in Chaucer).  Some could revise their paper, but most had to totally do something new.  After a week or more, I was told I wouldn't have to re-write it, but to recognize the problems we discussed.  For example, he suggested that some information should have been considered footnotes (agreed), some information he didn't see as relevant to the subject (okay, but debatable), and there was a difference in opinion about the focus of the paper (opinion).  Some of the criticism was helpful, some seemed irrational, such as, "what does a Mountebank have to do with poison in Hamlet?"  (See Hamlet: IV.7)

     By this time, the second research paper was coming due, as well as the second research paper in my second class, The Bible as Literature, as well as preparing for two finals.  I was then reading The Tempest.  My professor recommended that I write about the Tempest.  I agreed, so I began researching different aspects of the play to write about.  It seemed like each idea I had was already covered thoroughly by someone else in critical essays.  I could have tried to disagree with one of them, but so far I hadn't found anything significant to argue.  In the essay by Harry Berger, Jr.'s Miraculous Harp: A Reading of Shakespeare's Tempest, Berger raised some questions that had also interested me, so I used that as an approach for my paper.  I didn't write my paper in response to the entire essay, which is what my professor might have expected.  I wrote about the questions he raised that I hadn't seen other people write about and which he didn't answer.  

     I don't know why, but the idea of Carthage and the "Dido Problem" fascinated me.  Prospero's external problem of his lost and regained domain and his way of handling it, issues about royal authority and political domain, was the theme I focused on.  I used the calculus formula, known as the isoperimetric problem, or "Dido Problem" as an example of the method for establishing domain used by Dido when she went into exile and established Carthage/Tunis.  At this point, I knew it would be taking the risk of sounding ridiculous.  But I decided to write it as it was unfolding in connection to the island.  I also made a connection with Adrian in The Tempest (who has no lines in the play besides Act 2, scene 1), and Don Adriano De Armado in Love's Labor's Lost.  The significant lines were, "Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar..." (LLL, IV. 1.1063-1068), and how that echoed the overarching theme of Ariel, and that there is a ruler in heaven that all kings are subject to.  The Nemean lion, when slain by Herakles, became the constellation Leo, which is Ariel in Hebrew, and Ariel was the name of the spirit Prospero used to carry out his plans. 
    
     I also quoted, Miranda: "What foul play had we that we came from thence?
                                          or blessed was't we did?
                          Prospero: Both, both, my girl.
                                          By foul play, as thou sayst, were we heaved thence,
                                          But blessedly holped hither" (1.2.60-64).

     I argued that Shakespeare encourages us to study the text and subtext when he writes in a quote from Hamlet:  "There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves. / You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them'."

     For my research paper in my second class, The Bible as Literature, I wrote about the Jewish Feast of the 15th of Av, and received an A+.  The research paper in Shakespeare on The Tempest, a C-.  It may have seemed ridiculous to a professor from Yale, but at least it wasn't boring.  So my A in his class was dropped to a B due to my two research papers.  But I made it through and it was worth it: I was both "foully heaved thence" and "blessedly holped hither."  A "B" for the beauty of imperfection.

Flower burgers

The Flowerburgers
      Part 4

Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, "Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it."
Baudelaire would give
them a flower burger
instead and the people
would say, "What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?"

by Richard Brautigan

     I came across this poem by Richard Brautigan and it reminded me of a dream I had in the late fall of 2009.  I was up late the night before.  I had a dream that I was in a galleria food court.  It was indoors, and I was standing in a line and looking at the menu on the wall behind the counter.  It was my turn to order, and I was trying to make out the numbers, but they kept changing.  They were charging 5.00 for a hamburger, then it would change to 50.00.  I ordered a burger, then I went  outside to sit in a courtyard to wait for my order.

     As I sat at a small table under a veranda of trees and vines, an unusual waiter came to my table.  He was dressed in vintage clothes, but they looked like new.  He was very kind and soft spoken.  He placed my plate in front of me, and instead of hamburger meat, there was a big bunch of herbs inside the bread.  I didn't understand, I had never seen bundles of herbs instead of lettuce in a burger.  He then handed me a large bunch of herbs that were bundled together, very fresh and green and then smiled.  The sun was bright and I didn't see his face clearly but I could feel his smile.  He filled my glass with water fused with citrus fruit, and the sun shined through the leaves overhead and made the light and water very beautiful.

     When I looked up from my glass the man who was waiting on me was gone, but I realized when I tried to look around and my eyes were still closed that I was waking up to golden light in my room.  I had slept late, and the room was full of sunlight.  When I woke up, I realized that I forgot to bring my potted herbs inside overnight and the nights had started to get too cold already.  I tried to bring them in, but they had frozen overnight.  I was sad that I ignored my thought to bring them in the day before, thinking I could have saved them.

     I thought maybe that was what the dream was about, my way of reminding myself to bring in my plants.  But as I started completing an assignment on John Keats I was working on, I learned that he once studied to be an apothacary.  I looked up pictures of him after that, and although I didn't see the man's face clearly in my dream, I felt like it must have been about him.  I didn't know at the time that I was sick, and if I would have understood then to take the dream as an indication to seek help earlier, I could have avoided a more serious condition with my health.

     I also felt later on that it was an indication that my healing needed to include the most natural process available.  I am grateful that it has been possible to do that so far, and that I am still doing so well, and to have an apothecary and poet for a guide.

Ben Whishaw as John Keats in "Bright Star"
 Ode to a Nightingale
(...)
 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
  No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
  In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
          The same that oft-times hath
  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
  To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
  As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
    Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
          In the next valley-glades:
  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
    Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

The Lotus-Eaters

and My First Taste of Persimmons

    
     Last Monday evening I got my first Christmas gift - I met a lotus-eater!  One of the rental customers who had just flown in from California was setting his heavy backpack down at my counter and asked me if I knew what a persimmon was.  I said I wasn't sure, so I asked if it was a small round fruit like a peach thinking of something I saw once, but was maybe a kumquat.   He said, "Funny you should mention that, I just happen to have a backpack full of them so I can show you!  They grow in our backyard in California.  Would you like to have one?"  I said, "Really?  Sure!"  He was bringing them for family and friends and took one out of his backpack to give to me.  It was similar in size and texture to a tomato, only a little thicker or harder and more orange in color.  I asked if you are supposed to eat it just like an apple or a tomato, and he said yes, exactly.

     I waited to try the persimmon until today when it seemed ripe.  The texture was a little less hard to push on and seemed like it might get too soft if I waited longer.  I was amazed at how sweet, juicy and delicious it was!  The flavor and texture were a surprise.  I was also surprised I could eat the whole fruit with the skin and no seeds or core to remove.  Only the calyx that attaches to the stem had to be removed.

     The texture reminded me of a cantaloupe when it's not quite ripe, perfectly firm, not too crisp and yet slightly juicy.  The skin was easy to eat as well, like the skin of an apple or plum.  The taste was sweet and reminded me of a mango, or a honeydew melon, but with a distinct flavor of its own.  I also looked up some information about it:

     The Date-plum (Diospyros lotus) is a persimmon native to southwest Asia and southeast Europe. It was known to the ancient Greeks as "the fruit of the gods," or was often referred to as "nature's candy," i.e. Dios pyros "divine fruit," or literally "the wheat of Zeus," also "God's pear," and "Jove's fire."  Its English name is thought to derive from the Persian Khormaloo خرمالو literally "date-plum," referring to the taste of this fruit which is reminiscent of both plums and dates. This species is one candidate for the lotus mentioned in Homer's Odyssey:  it was so delicious that those who ate it forgot about returning home and wanted to stay and eat lotus with the lotus-eaters.

      The persimmon fruits, like the tomato, are not popularly considered to be berries, but in terms of their botanical morphology, the fruit is in fact a berry.  They are classified into two categories: astringent and non-astringent. The non-astringent is as crisp as an apple when ripe. However, astringent varieties must ripen to be very soft before it can be eaten. If not, it will be a very bitter experience for you. But once ripened, the astringent varieties are as sweet or sweeter than non-astringent varieties.

     My persimmon was not a bitter experience at all, but very sweet.  The experience reminded me that something that seems bitter to me at first, when I give it time, has a way of ripening into a sweet fruit of life.  To use the words of the Lotus Eaters, "A gracing, with a taste of murder in it." One Japanese post says that in Buddhism, the persimmon is used as a symbol of transformation. The green persimmon is acrid and bitter, but the fruit becomes very sweet as it ripens. Thus, man might be basically ignorant but that ignorance is transformed into wisdom as the persimmon's bitterness is transformed into sweet delicious fruit. Dried persimmons, or hoshi gaki, are served at New Year's time in Hawaii. They signify health and success in life for the new year.

Six Persimmons 

(A 13th-century Chinese painting by the monk, Mu Qi (Mu Ch'i), the painter better known in China as Fa-Chang. It was painted during the Song Dynasty.) 

     Another 'Fruit of the Gods' description, in China this fruit is used to regulate one’s ch’i (personal energy) and is symbolic of joy. To the Japanese, it is a symbol of triumph.  They also have a star inside of them when sliced:

     Eating a persimmon in a dream forecasts a surprise meeting with a past friend or former associate. But if the fruit was puckered, the meeting will not be pleasant.

The Lotus Eaters "It Hurts"