The Proverbial Bear Hunt has truly changed. 100 years, 40 years ago we had bear rugs and stuffed bears. Today we have found that we can't go under the bear rug and are asked too many times to go around the bear rug and it just feels weird to walk over the bear head. And so we ignore the bear rug and instead look for bears.
Today Salmon hatcheries are pumping out the fish - a staple in diets for all of the Omega Vitamins
What has happened to Bears? They are longed for. And a Bear Hunt might involve a hefty cost, a new camera, hiking shoes, binoculars and discussions of bears seen and where they are.
Psalm 91:10
no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent
Slightly less sought after - The Black Plague. We all like to escape Trouble. And then there are times - where you just have to live past trouble. World War II is considered the end of the British Empire when the Church read the liturgy and the bombs dropped. The faithful attended during the crisis and later sat at home to think things through.
We find the Church - during the Plagues - was the hospital. Was holding Services in the open air to avoid contamination. Striving to heal, pray and bless.
Some of the facts known to the people facing the Black Death - this had been around for a 1,000 years. 541 A.D. was the beginning. In only eight days in August 1667, Elizabeth Hancock lost her six children and her husband. Some of the 150 Million Deaths. Covering her mouth with a handkerchief against the stench of decay, she dragged their bodies to a nearby field and buried them. She knew to drag them by a rope to be buried and she knew she was burying them herself. Harvard University was built in 1636.
Will we face the Black Plague? The Plague of Madagascar killed 36 of 84. But they are remote and antibiotics - we know due to a mass graveyard of 600 - Plagues are pretty typically stopped by Antibiotics. Modern DNA analysis of the Black Plague performed on the remains of some of its victims has shown that the bacterium responsible for the deaths of between 30 to 60% of Europe's population in the 1300s was Yersinia pestis.
Is the subject of the Post the Black Death?
Nope.
The Subject of the Post is what we do when Trouble assails us.
We live in a time where we are told we live in a 50% divorce rate. We are told 2 in 10 Women will have Breast Cancer. We have old Dog Sanctuaries where old family pets are let go to have a puppy and pep in the household. Not exactly. When reading the Pew Reports you find college graduates have a 2/3 success ratio in marriage. Breast Cancer is now 90% curable. And the 2 of 10 includes women who are 90 years and 100 years old.
Telling us we aren't as throw away as we think. We are healthier than we think. And Old Dogs sometimes lived with really Old People.
Trouble. If you rounded up Gideon, David, Jeremiah and Peter - they wisely said No to Trouble. But some people are divorced, some pass on from metastasized cancer and old dogs are sometimes not given loyalty.
When Trouble comes - we are defined in our ability to endure and hope. To remain steadfast and follow what God would want us to do.
In the Days of Black Plague - it traveled 8 miles a day and this was known.
Eleanor Ross
"Peak District village of Eyam, home to Hancock and her family, became the site of one of the most heroic acts of self-sacrifice in British history – and one of the main reasons the plague’s march was halted.
Today, in Eyam, located 35 miles southeast of Manchester, all seems well in the world. A pretty commuter village of 900 residents, Eyam has all the requisite English attractions: pubs, cozy cafes and an idyllic church.
Stand here 450 years ago, though, and you would have looked down onto a village ravaged by the Black Death. You would have seen empty streets, the doors daubed with white crosses, and heard the wails of the dying from behind closed doors.
The plague reached Eyam in the summer of 1665 when a London merchant sent flea-infested cloth samples to the local tailor, Alexander Hadfield. Within a week, Hadfield’s assistant, George Vickers, had died a prolonged and agonizing death. Before long, the rest of the household had fallen ill and died.
Until now, the plague had been mostly contained to the south of England. Terrified the disease would spread across the north, wiping out other towns and communities, the villagers realized there was only one option: quarantine. With the guidance of their rector William Mompesson, they decided to isolate themselves, creating a perimeter of boundary stones that they vowed not to cross … even those who were not showing any symptoms.
“It meant they couldn’t escape coming into contact with the disease,” explained Catherine Rawson, secretary at Eyam Museum, which details how the village dealt with the plague.
It also meant making careful plans to ensure not only that villagers were kept in, but that others were kept out – and the residents could still receive the food and supplies they needed.
The villagers established a system of boundary stones around the village’s periphery, boring holes into the rocks and leaving coins soaked in vinegar – they believed it acted as a disinfectant – in the holes. Merchants from surrounding villages would collect the money and leave bundles of meat, grains and trinkets in return.
You can still visit the boundary stones today. Set about half a mile back from the village, these flat, rough rocks are an attraction now, the sides of the holes smoothed down by centuries of children slotting their fingers in. Silver coins glint inside, placed there by tourists to honor plague victims.
How well residents took the news that they were going to be quarantined is debatable. Although some villagers tried to leave, it appears that most of Eyam’s townsfolk stoically accepted their plight and made a pact with God to remain.
Even if they did leave, they certainly wouldn’t have received a warm welcome elsewhere. One woman left Eyam to travel to the market at nearby village of Tideswell, five miles west. When people realised that she was from Eyam, they pelted her with food and mud, shouting, “The Plague! The Plague!”.
As more people died, the village began to collapse. Roads were left to crumble; untended gardens became overgrown. Crops were left unpicked in fields, leaving villagers to rely on food packages from neighboring towns. They were living with death literally around the corner, unsure of who would next fall prey to a disease nobody understood. The plague in 1665 must have been very much like Ebola in 2015, except with even less medical knowledge and no available vaccine."
What was won?
The Black Death traveled 30 to 100 times faster over land than the bubonic plagues of the 20th century
All human attempts to end the plague in Europe were not in vain.
Cities managed keeping plague beyond their borders - those devised and implemented quarantine: border controls at city gates, harbors, and mountain passes; individual health passports (which identified a person, certified where he or she came from), and other related measures such as spy networks to signal when a plague had erupted in a foreign city or region.
Ragusa was a pioneer in this regard, with its earliest ‘quarantine’ and it's increasingly sophisticated measures to isolate the infected and control its borders during the late 14th and 15th centuries.
We know in the centuries before the Black Death, about 10 percent of people lived past age 70, said study researcher Sharon DeWitte, a biological anthropologist at the University of South Carolina. In the centuries after, more than 20 percent of people lived past that age. Survival.
In Survival areas, a cluster of three immune system genes code proteins that latch onto harmful bacteria, triggering a defensive response. People living in places the Black Death did not ravage lack these toll-like receptor genes.
The great pestilence jump-started the transformation of the hospital from a charity endeavor to a place where the sick go for treatment.
Housing improved - an increased demand for private spaces in domestic architecture, perhaps a reaction to the pre-plague crowding had enabled the disease to spread rapidly.
You’re reading this article in English rather than in Latin because of the Black Death. Literacy made a tremendous jump after the plague. The number of universities saw an increase after the plague. Many Latin professors had been wiped out, so teachers fluent in this language were brought up from lower schools to staff these new universities. Lower school vacancies were filled up by teachers who had little or no working knowledge of Latin.
End of hopeless feudalism. The feudal system burdened peasants with obligations to their lords was turned upside down by the Black Death. So many peasants died during the plague the fields lay abandoned and the crops went unharvested. Lords became desperate for workers.
More ambitious peasants were filled with a sense of purpose and flocked into cities to engage in crafts and trades. The more successful ones became wealthy. They became a new middle class.
Knowledge of medicine existed had been employed in the context of theology and spirituality.
Now with clergy and monks dying with the common folk, and with no answers as to why the horror was happening, the Church revealed itself clueless in the face of catastrophe and thereby lost credibility as an exclusive pipeline to God. Many people lost faith or turned to other paths of spirituality. Dogma was increasingly questioned, and people began to think for themselves.
The Spiritual Reformation had begun. Bibles were printed in working languages. Churches were changing. The world was set out to be explored.
Trouble
was not avoided.
Isaiah 45:7
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.
Jesus told us this in The Beatitudes. And Isaiah was telling the Exiles, the slaves of the Empire of Cyrus.
Daniel 2:22
He reveals the deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 12:12
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Isaiah 40:31
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
1 Corinthians 13:7
Love
bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Abba Father,
We Pray Your Word:
1 Corinthians 15:58
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Galatians 6:9
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
John 16:33
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Philippians 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Abba, we know the Scriptures and the Power of the Living God. We thank You for Jackson's increase in health and for his comfort. We pray for the comfort of Alexander who in his steadfastness prompts admiration and imitation. We give You thanks for education and opportunity. Long forest walks - giving Joy.
We thank You to want to come home from lovely vacation. We thank You for Lovely Vacation and for Good Health. For my nose healing from nitrogen applied. We Thank You for weight loss after vacation and for 20 point improvement in Blood Pressure - back to Low Blood Pressure.
We thank You for the rain we have seen in Texas and pray for the West Coast on up to British Columbia.
And Say Thank You for Blessings. Like not being in Plague. And mostly for Alexander, leading the way in Steadfast Love bringing us to see the fuel You give for us all - Love.
In Jesus we Celebrate Life. Forevermore.
Amen.
♔ Lord Jesus Saves! †
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