Power, Presence

Shot Season

September 26, 2026

Autumn has officially arrived, and with it pumpkins, apples, and the first falling leaves. Corn mazes are springing up and Halloween costumes and décor are on display at Costco. We have cooler evenings and darker mornings. But also? Another season is here, judging from emails from my health insurance company and signs posted at local pharmacies. These signs remind passersby that it’s time to make appointments. It’s not just autumn, friends. It’s also “Shot Season.”

One of my friends got COVID-19 shots and flu shots yesterday. He woke up in the middle of the night with a fever and isn’t feeling great today. Another friend got her COVID and flu shots last week and also had a rough day the next day, when she mostly stayed in bed. I just scheduled my vaccine appointment for Friday after work so that, if the shots affect me, I’ll have a weekend to recover. It might be annoying to spend a beautiful autumn day resting, but it is far better than getting a full-blown case of COVID. Apparently, I am very much a fan of vaccines.

When the first COVID vaccines came out years ago, many people also felt rotten the next day. We polled each other, asking our friends and coworkers, “Did you get your vaccine? First dose? Second dose? Which kind, Pfizer or Moderna? How did you feel after?” Nobody looked forward to next-day illness, but mostly it was accepted that a little sickness after a COVID vaccine was much better than coming down with the disease itself. It’s easy to forget how destructive and terrible that time was, how everything shut down and we were told to stay home. It’s easy to forget how many people died.

I am remembering how grateful I was when the first COVID vaccines came out. I drove to Roseville to the former county fairgrounds, where the health department had set up a mass immunization center. There were long lines of people waiting to get shots and rows of health care workers at tables at the front of the room, efficiently administering them. After our shots, we sat in folding chairs and waited a few minutes, just to make sure we didn’t have any immediate negative responses. The entire experience made me a little teary-eyed, the way the community came together, how it seemed like there was finally hope for lessening the effects of a terrible disease that had already killed so many.

And now? The federal government is not really encouraging vaccines so much. The New York Times reported recently that major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, issued vaccine recommendations based on reviews of the latest scientific evidence because “the federal government is not fulfilling that responsibility in the way that it historically has,” the chair of the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota said. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only approved updated COVID shots for people with high-risk conditions or who are at least 65 years old.

I recently had a birthday that vaulted me into a new decade, but I’m still a few years away from that age. Thankfully, I live in a state where pharmacies can provide updated COVID vaccines for anyone six months or older who wants one, in spite of the federal government adopting those stricter guidelines. My state has adopted its own vaccine recommendations, and the governor signed a bill requiring insurance plans to cover state-endorsed vaccines. This is not the case nationwide, though. There are places where it will be difficult for people who do not meet the federal guidelines to receive their shots. There are places where people will fall ill because of this. Continue Reading…

Power, Presence

Remembering my “Blackberry Project”

September 20, 2026

A full trash can of berry vines and other weeds? Means it was a happy day of work outside.

I started a YouTube channel a few years ago. I called it “Ordinary Holy” and began sharing videos I made about my “Blackberry Project,” which was my plan to eradicate the invasive Himalayan blackberry bushes that had taken over a good part of our property.

Hard to believe that none of those “Blackberry Project” videos went viral!

Not so surprising, actually. I just spent a few minutes looking at some of those old videos, most about two minutes long. Even I had a hard time watching all the way to the end. They honestly were a little boring. I did my best with iMovie on my iPhone, but the editing and lighting were amateur and my narration wasn’t always clear or interesting. I tended to say the same things over and over: “Wow! Look at the size of that vine!”

I had thought it was such a good idea, though! I wanted to document my process of working with the berries, spending twenty minutes at a time, maybe a few times a week, out in the yard with my clippers and three pairs of gloves. I’d take videos of my vine piles to show that an overwhelming project could be manageable, that all it would take was commitment, consistency, and a belief that I could make a difference, even if I spent only a few minutes at a time. I found inspiration from a verse in the Old Testament, close to the end in the book of Zechariah: “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” (Zechariah 4:10, New Living Translation)

I would begin the work. I would document the work. I would share the results. I would encourage my readers (viewers?) to start their own projects that also seemed insurmountable! In the end, I would get rid of those pokey, painful, ugly, annoying blackberry bushes and usher in a regular Eden on my property. The blackberries would be gone and all would be well.

It hasn’t worked that way.

It’s been years since I posted a Blackberry Project video on that Ordinary Holy YouTube channel. I was surprised that I could still find them, that the powers behind YouTube hadn’t jettisoned them.

Sure, I’ve made progress over the years eliminating the blackberry vines. There’s an entire section of the creek that has been freed. I’m proud of that. What I didn’t realize, though, was that the land wouldn’t remain fallow when the vines disappeared. Of course, other things would grow. I guess I assumed that native plants would find their way to the open land, that since I’d done my work, nature would repay me with fields of sweet, natural beauty. I never imagined that an entirely new set of plant problems would develop: annoying sticker weeds and strange grasses.

So that is where we are now. There are fewer blackberries, but some blackberries are still thriving—ferocious, they are—and now there is hedge parsley and other thorny, stickery annoyances.

This is what I need to remember: Continue Reading…