FIVE

During the corona confinement we’ve turned “high five” hand slapping into an elbow bump, but we aren’t even allowed to do that now.  We can only do what’s six feet apart.  Blow a kiss?  Smile? Talk? Wave?  Yes. We can still do those things. 

Five is a special number and we learn it very early in life.  Every parent counts the fingers and toes on a newborn to see if they are all there. My daughter, born full term, but just under six pounds had perfectly shaped and trimmed finger nails that weren’t even a quarter of an inch across! We teach our little children about fingers, thumbs and toes.  We have the little piggy going to market as we tickle them and make them giggle.
 
Many flowers have five petals.  I do face painting and the tutorials that show how to make petals and use several colors on a single brush to design more quickly always make five petals. It might not look botanically correct as a specific species, but it always looks like a flower and not an odd color four leaf clover! It’s like a minimum for a flower. 

I play the piano and have taught a few people.  I explain that every octave, series of white notes, has five black notes. They are called “sharps” and “flats”.  The same black note can have two different names depending on if you are moving up a half step or down a half step.  This can be confusing.  Imagine if your name changed because you were going up, or down.  Mind you a person can be called sharp, and a singer flat. 

Many things in life do better in groups of odd numbers than even ones.  If a board or committee has an even number of members than there can be a stalemate in a vote.  As long as you have an odd number the outcome of the vote will be clear. In the case of good design, especially in flower arranging the odd number of feature flowers makes the arrangement more interesting, as a cluster, with some higher and some lower. 
 
Pentagrams and five pointed stars have their own symbolism and are used by different people to represent specific ideologies, or identify adherents or brands.  The Pentagon in Washington is named for it’s shape and here’s one explanation for that: “The easiest solution, a tall building, was out because of pre-war restrictions on steel usage and the desire not to ruin Washington's skyline. The tract selected had a asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions so the building was designed to conform to the tract of land.”  Google
 
For me, five is the number of GRACE. Grace is one of those words, like love and hope that can have a lot of meanings depending on the context and the one using it. The story is told of Saint Paul who prayed that a ‘thorn in his flesh’ would be taken away. God's answer was:  "...My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness."  2Co_12:9  

I need God's strength made perfect in my weakness to do anything about this corona confinement that's keeping me from what my plans were for this time of year.  Since His grace is sufficient, I"ll take it.  I didn't know what "grace" was until I cared for my senior parents 24/7 for five years. It was a very hard job but I had this sense of commitment and desire that no matter what it took, I wouldn't quit.  That to me was God's grace! 

That's how I feel right now about this time we are enduring. So give yourself a high five and clap your hands!  

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