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The Holiday Chronicles: The New Year, Epiphany, Hope, and Rain

The Holiday Chronicles: The New Year, Epiphany, Hope, and Rain

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It’s windy.

I woke up this morning to find a Christmas tree rolling around my back yard.

I knew it wasn’t my Christmas tree because I didn’t put one up this year.

But I have one now.

And I am guessing I also have at least one happy neighbor who I am sure had been stressing over when that tree on his curb was going to finally be picked up.

Now his stress is over. Now I can have that tree on my curb and I can stress over how long it’s going to be there and when it is going to be picked up.

 

We are already over a week into the New Year.

The New Year’s celebrations have come and gone.

And like every year on New Year’s Eve as the day slips into night, and I go to sleep, I wake up with the new dawn in the New Year having some renewed spirit.

An epiphany.

Like something is sure to change…

This year, will be, unlike any other year…

This is the year I am going to … (fill in the blank).

I have passed Go, collected my two hundred bucks and I am ready to go around again, only this time…this year,  maybe I will land on Broadway.

I get another chance to do it better. Maybe forget some pain or unpleasantness from the previous year, because that was yesterday this is today.

And for some reason, today… feels different.

 

Hope.

I wrote about Hope a couple of years ago at a time when I thought I needed to be reminded and maybe we all needed to be reminded that it was going to be okay.

But I think it may help sometimes to have these transition days like a New Year’s Day to metaphorically wipe the slate clean and start anew.

Taking a thought from Hope, I don’t know for sure if God has already revealed what is in store for me.

But here is my New Year’s epiphany…

Maybe He has?

Maybe I was right when I proposed in Hope that that I might be living my rewards already. Maybe the truth is I landed on Broadway twenty years ago and I am already living those rewards I worked hard for and prayed for.

And though I am still going to have those days when I wake up to random Christmas trees rolling around my yard, it’s okay.

This is it.

This is the year I am going to…realize that this is it!

And it is just as it should be…

 

As I thought about trying to wrap this up it occurred to me if I had to summarize 2018 in one word it would be rain.  Rain that destroyed my grass and turned my yard into mud, and kept my tomatoes from turning red.

So while at the gym this evening I listened to rain songs…Lowen and Navarro, the Jayhawks, John Hiatt.

And I settled on Hiatt to sum it up:

 

Batten down the hatches
But keep your heart out on your sleeve
A little bit of stormy weather, that’s no cause for us to leave
Just stay here baby, in my arms
Let it wash away the pain
Feels like rain

 (from Feels Like Rain, John Hiatt)

 

And once again, let our dreams continue undimmed by change, tragedy, conflict, and the tears that may be shed as a result.

 

And let it be, a happy new year.

 

 

 

The Holiday Chronicles: Christmas, Joy to the World

The Holiday Chronicles: Christmas, Joy to the World

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Where  are you Christmas
Why can’t I find you
Why have you gone away

Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can’t I hear music play

My world is changing
I’m rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too

Where are you Christmas
Do you remember
The one you used to know

I’m not the same one
See what the time’s done
Is that why you have let me go

Those lyrics as you probably know are from the song “Where Are You Christmas” from the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas in the year 2000. I have always liked that song, kind of sad though, there have been a few times it has made me cry.

 

It was sometime before Thanksgiving.  Hayley came by to visit.

“Hayley,” I said, “Christmas is cancelled this year.”

“Kim and I are going to your grandparents for Christmas, we are not going to do anything here.  You should go and spend Christmas with your nephews in Florida.”

I am not sure she was too happy, as I recall she didn’t say much or give me a hug or kiss goodbye when she left.

A couple weeks later Hayley called me to ask if she was seriously not invited to spend Christmas with us at my parents.

So I said, “Hayley seriously… which would you rather do…spend Christmas with your nephews in Florida or watch Fox 5 for two days?

She bought the tickets to Florida.

 

I had always put a lot of energy into our Christmases.

But for the first time in my life I didn’t have a Christmas tree.

And for the first time since Kim and I have been together, we didn’t send out a Christmas card with a  Christmas letter.

This year we just didn’t have the energy.

 

That first Christmas after Donny’s accident we tied a Christmas tree to the roof of my van and headed out to Deep Creek, Maryland.  We rented a house up in the woods, it snowed, we were all together, but most importantly we were away from what was familiar.  Nothing would seem familiar that Christmas, it was impossible.

For the next fourteen Christmases we returned to the routine that was familiar here at home. Celebrating on Christmas Eve with family and some friends who became family along the way.

But even after all that time, this year, now the 16th Christmas following the accident, the need to visit the unfamiliar once again seemed like the right thing to do.  And since my parents were going to be home alone for this Christmas, that seemed like the right place to do it.

 

Kim gave me a short book to read called the Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans.  I finished it one evening a couple of weeks ago.

The message of the book was about the first gift of Christmas:

And this is because of the great gift of Christmas.  Because He came.

Coincidentally, the next morning I read a devotional that I get every day in my email.  I will admit, I don’t always take the time to read them, but that morning I did.

Once again, it was about that first gift of Christmas:

For God so Loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son.

 

I have a friend who lost her son just a few weeks before this Christmas.  For her, the journey has just begun.  For her this Christmas would be unfamiliar, unlike any before, but not by choice.

I heard a sermon recently and the preacher said, “Mary, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist tell us that this Christmas for you could be a time for healing…”

At the time with everything that Christmas wasn’t for us this year, that sounded like a good thing.

Though I thought to myself Christmas is a time for many things, and I hoped healing, but that may be easier said than done.

 

One Saturday earlier this month, Kim and I took our grandson Cameron to see the new Grinch movie.  Though I thought it was your typical “Grinch” story retold, I liked it and Cameron seemed to really like it.

A few days a later, I asked Kim to go back with me and watch the Grinch movie again.

“You want me to go with you to see The Grinch again?”  She asked a bit confused. “And why do you want to go see The Grinch again?”

“I don’t know… I just want to,” I told her, feeling a little silly.

“Okay…”

So we did.

There’s a scene in the movie when remorse sets in and The Grinch admits his crime to the citizens of Whoville who, to his dismay, remained joyous in spite of having all their Christmas presents and Christmas decorations stolen:

“It was me I stole your Christmas.

 I stole it because I thought it would fix something that happened a long time ago.

But it didn’t… and I am sorry, I am so very sorry for everything.”

 

Isn’t that the truth?

We can’t fix those things that happened a long time ago, sixteen years ago, or even in the last few weeks.

Things happen.

But despite our lack of energy and our desire to get away from reminders of those things…

Christmas can’t be stolen.

Because we have that first Gift of Christmas.

And because of that Christmas may, in fact, be about healing.

But maybe not healing in its direct meaning.

It may be more about the fact that we may never heal.

Because we may never need to.

Because He has us.

 

Joy to the World, the Lord is Come.

Merry Christmas

 

Epilogue

It’s the day before Christmas Eve. Unexpectedly, we are on our way to western Pennsylvania.  Short of some edits, I had basically finished writing this essay Wednesday evening, December 19.  The next morning Kim called me at work and told me that Nevin, the husband of our niece Cassandra, working the night shift, had lost his life in a mine accident.  He was a former Marine, a wonderful husband, a great father, and just a nice guy.  He leaves behind a wonderful wife, three beautiful young children, and many other family members.   Another Christmas that will be  unfamiliar for some and sadly familiar for others.  Another reminder that things happen and we can’t fix them.  Nevin is with Jesus now and the rest of us have to rely on our faith, the faith in the first Gift of this season.  A final message from that same sermon on healing, “We can keep the faith even in the face of our difficulties and grief, we can find joy in Jesus Christ.”

We can…I know it.

Please keep this family also in your prayers this Christmas.

The Thanksgiving Day Massacre

The Thanksgiving Day Massacre

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Her body was green and she had two vicious jaws
She polished her mate as she kissed him with her claws
She bit off his head so he would not feel the pain
She wanted his body so much she ate his brain

From Don Dixon’s “Praying Mantis” 1985

 

“Curt come here quick, what is this?” my wife yelled from down the hall.

One of our bedrooms has, over time, been converted into a year round plant room, though this time of year it was also filled with plants that had been recently moved from the deck to winter inside.

It was Thanksgiving morning, we were about to leave for Pennsylvania, Kim decided to check on her plants before hitting the road.

On one of the plants was a tan and orange cocoon like thing that Kim called me to look at.

As I was focusing on the nest- like structure, Kim blurted,

“Look! There are ants all over the leaves!”

I shifted my focus now to one of the long leaves and the “ants.”

Finding the leaves covered with insects I responded,

“Those aren’t ants… those are praying mantises!”

 

As a kid growing up in New Jersey I was always told it was illegal to kill a praying mantis.

And I grew old, never having any reason to challenge that.

Therefore, now standing in my spare bedroom, surrounded by plants, in the presence of my wife, and facing hundreds of praying mantises, in my mind I was looking at ten years to life…but I had to make a decision.

I lifted the plant and carefully carried it down the stairs and out on to the deck.

It was a cold morning.

In a short while, I looked again, they were all dead.

Mantis bodies littered my deck.

 

We threw our suitcases in the car and like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde we headed for the Pennsylvania border.

We were on the lam.

With me driving the get-away car Kim got on her iPad and did some research.

It turns out, a praying mantis is pretty scary.  They are carnivores, and there are some larger species that will hunt small birds, lizards, and mammals! They have triangular heads that they can turn 180 degrees, two compound eyes with a few extra regular eyes in the middle just because.  Their legs are equipped with spikes for pinning their prey.  But mostly in the US, they just eat other bugs.

Sort of.

They are also cannibals and will eat their siblings!

And the real kicker, the female will eat the male after mating!

Okay that’s enough…this is what Dixon was singing about.

“What about the protection…are they protected?” I asked as we left Virginia and entered Maryland.

She read from the internet site Snopes/Fact Check:

The belief that it is illegal to kill a praying mantis (a crime carrying a $50 fine as a punishment) has been floating around since the 1950s, and we have no idea where this bit of insectoid legal apocrypha came from:

“When I was growing up in New Jersey, I used to find praying mantises in our driveway and back yard every once in a while. It was illegal in NJ to kill a praying mantis, as I remember.”

There is not (and never has been) any federal or state law proscribing the killing of praying mantises.

No.

We were in the clear.

No Jail time.

No $50 times a couple hundred dead bugs fine.

Okay, okay so I am sure there is something your momma told you that you still believe too.

And besides, like that guy in the Snopes internet post, I’m from Jersey too where we have the Jersey Devil, Bigfoot, and Jimmy Hoffa.

What’s the moral of the story?

Love and trust your mother… but verify.

And check your plants before you carry them in the house, spring comes early indoors.

The Holiday Chronicles: Thanksgiving

The Holiday Chronicles: Thanksgiving

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Some traditional Thanksgiving images at a country store in Springs, PA.

“That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

It’s Thanksgiving week.

Monday, November 19 as I began to make some notes, was the day Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address, one hundred and fifty five years ago. The day Lincoln said “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.”

Lincoln got a lot of things right, but that wasn’t one of them.

And what about Thanksgiving?

I watched a TV drama on Tuesday, it was their Thanksgiving episode.   One of the characters expressed his struggle to get through the Thanksgiving holiday each year.  I have heard that before, sometimes from people very close to me. It is true, not everyone has those warm fuzzy feelings at Thanksgiving.

 

When I was a kid we made Pilgrim hats, turkeys, and Native American Indian headdresses out of colored paper. Then we draped the classroom with chains made out of paper rings of brown, orange, and red.

Our characterization of Thanksgiving is attributed to a description in a letter by a Plymouth, Massachusetts settler named Edward Winslow in 1621.  More words that established a legacy.

But some argue that the actual first Thanksgiving occurred 60 years before that in Florida when the Spanish fleet came ashore and planted a cross in the sand.  They gave thanks for God’s providence and celebrated their safe arrival with a feast with the Native Americans they encountered.

Someone I love dearly said recently wouldn’t it be nice if you could pick your own Thanksgiving Day?  Celebrate and give thanks on a day when you or your family had something special to be thankful for.

Maybe there is something to that.

You pick your own day to plant your cross in the sand.

 

And it’s not just those emotional struggles.

Because look what we have done.

Like so many other things we have screwed up.

Thanksgiving is now all about TV deals at Walmart.

Colored paper and pilgrim hats replaced with colored ad circulars, coupons, and doorbusters.

Since now on the day after Halloween stores seem to go right to Christmas, someday Thanksgiving may just be part of the fifty shades of Black Friday.

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here” said Lincoln of his words to help dedicate a cemetery at Gettysburg.

Someday as it pertains to the traditions of our Thanksgiving, the world may little note nor remember …what we do here.

 

Now as this Thanksgiving week comes to a close, whatever challenges we may have worried about are behind us.  Having spent my Thanksgiving in the farmlands of western Pennsylvania, it somehow felt more Thanksgiving like, more traditional. And the only real struggle I had was not reaching for the turkey since for me it was my first self-imposed pescatarian Thanksgiving.

And I hope yours was exactly how you wanted it to be, your cross in the sand, like you picked it yourself, without any struggles.

One to be thankful for.

Near Meyersdale, PA
Knock A Little Louder Sugar!

Knock A Little Louder Sugar!

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I got another one of those Facebook memory reminders today.  This one from four years ago, something I wrote for my Happier, Healthier Me blog.  After taking a look, with all the traveling and fast food stops going on this weekend, not to mention the Big Event tomorrow, I thought it might be a good one to revisit on this day before Thanksgiving.  Here is a slightly edited version from November 21, 2014:

 

When I was a kid I used to bring my lunch to school. To the best of my recollection, for two cents a day or ten cents a week I could buy a little “milk card” that allowed me to get a little container of milk to drink with my lunch every day. For twenty five cents a day I could buy a card that allowed me to get lunch from the cafeteria every day and a little carton of milk. I never got that because it was too expensive. But at every meal we drank milk. Before school we drank milk, when we came home we drank milk, with dinner we drank milk. There was no soda, or as my western Pennsylvanian wife would call it, “POP”, in my house as a rule. Sometimes in the summer, my mother would buy some Acme brand sodas to have for barbecues or special occasions. But if I really wanted something other than milk to drink I needed to sneak over to my aunt and uncle’s house, they lived next door. There I could get Tang and better yet……Coca-Colas!

As I grew older I developed a serious “Coke” problem…..Coca-Cola that is. I consumed mass quantities of it. April 23rd, 1985 was a devastating day for me. My world had suddenly changed. I didn’t know what I was going to do because the Coke people on that day introduced the “New Coke” and later that week discontinued the production of “My Coke” (the original recipe).

I remember being in a little store in a campground somewhere during that time period and finding a shelf full of undiscovered “My Coke.”

I bought it all.

But eventually, the Coca-Cola people realized their mistake and returned to the recipe I had grown to love. But more importantly, eventually I began to reduce my “POP” consumption to what it is now which is just occasional.

In June (2014), the New York State high court struck down New York City’s law banning the sale of super-sized sugary drinks, a very controversial initiative of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. You might have thought that extreme but when I was a kid, a typical bottle of Coke from a vending machine was 6.5 ounces……try to find something that size in a Seven Eleven today. And according to the Harvard School of Public Health:

  • Two out of three adults and one out of three children in the United States are overweight or obese.
  • The rising consumption of sugary drinks has been a major contributor to the obesity epidemic.
  • A typical 20-ounce soda contains 15 to 18 teaspoons of sugar and upwards of 240 calories.
  • In the 1970s, sugary drinks made up about 4% of US daily calorie intake; by 2001, that had risen to about 9%.
  • From 1989 to 2008, calories from sugary beverages increased by 60% in children ages 6 to 11, from 130 to 209 calories per day, and the percentage of children consuming them rose from 79% to 91%.
  • People who consume sugary drinks regularly—1 to 2 cans a day or more—have a 26% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than people who rarely have such drinks.
  • Nearly 30 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes and another 86 million Americans have pre-diabetes and are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

 

I remember when my kids were younger and active in sports, we thought we always had to pump them full of Gatorade. I guess kids aren’t the only ones who are influenced by advertising.

Something to think about.

Because November is American Diabetes Month.

 

Okay, so that was it.

Watch your “pop” intake this weekend.

Go run a “Turkey Trot.”

And have a Happy Thanksgiving.

 

If you would like more info about diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association website.

 

 

 

Veterans Day Musings

Veterans Day Musings

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My dad with his brother Ted during the Korean conflict

He blesses the boys
As they stand in line
The smell of gun grease
And the bayonets they shine
He’s there to help them
All that he can
To make them feel wanted
He’s a good holy man

Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You never, never, never
Reach the sky

Sky Pilot.

A song from 1968 by Eric Burdon and the Animals.

Though the term dates back to the late 1800’s, Sky Pilot is a slang term for a military Chaplain.

Lately, in my quest to reduce some unnecessary stress, I have been avoiding listening to or watching the news as much as I can. On my XM radio I have discovered Little Steven’s (Steve Van Zandt) Underground Garage.  If you have any appreciation for rock music and its origins, this is the station for you.

Last week on a trip out to visit my parents I heard this song.

 

It was the early 1940’s and the World War II was raging on.  Rumor had it, the British were taking fourteen year olds as sailors on their Merchant Navy ships. At fourteen years old, there was no other option to get into the war.  So a couple of kids from Jersey made the trip up to New York City, eager to get involved anyway that they could and serve their country in any way they could.

Sailors in the British Merchant Navy were classified as civilians. Germany had declared that every vessel of the British mercantile marine was to be regarded as a warship, meaning that the sailors of the Merchant Navy faced tremendous risks. An estimated 30,248 merchant seamen lost their lives during World War II, a death rate proportionally higher than in any of the armed forces.

Unfortunately or fortunately, for these two young teenagers, the rumor was not true, and they were turned away.  Disappointed, the two boys returned to their home town in New Jersey.  They would be left out of this war.

It’s Veterans Day.

I spent some time while I was with my parents last weekend asking questions as I typically do.

My grandfather, my father’s father was born in Norway.  He entered the United States illegally in the early 1900’s.  He was a sailor who jumped ship in New York and headed for Norwegian communities in the mid-western US.  In spite of how he entered the country, he served in the United States Army during World War I in France as a motorcycle messenger.  Though my father thinks he may have been discharged early, but honorably, due to his inability to speak English well enough.  I remember as kid seeing his discharge papers hanging on the wall.

When World War II broke out, living on the New Jersey coast, my grandfather was trained to identify enemy aircraft silhouettes and manned the coastal spotting towers along the beaches.  Some of those towers still remain today.

My mother’s oldest brother Bill served in the Seabees in the south Pacific in World War II.

My mother’s other brother, my uncle Bob, was a sergeant on a mortar crew in the Korean conflict.

My father’s younger brother Ted served in the Navy during the Korean conflict.

My dad, after returning from that ill-fated attempt to join the British Merchant Navy with one of his Oceanport buddies in World War II, found another way to serve his country at home.

It was estimated that by the end of the war more than 6 million men had left farm work to go off to war.  The USDA’s Farm Corps was a solution to that problem.  It employed 2.5 million patriotic teenagers who wanted to serve in some way.

USDA official Meredith C. Wilson wrote at the time that “manpower for agriculture is of equal importance with manpower to produce combat weapons for our fighting men.”

And farm worker recruitment materials from the Office of War Information insisted that “bread is ammunition as vital as bullets.”

It may not have been as exciting as crossing the Atlantic dodging torpedoes from German U-Boats, but at least it was something.

During the Korean conflict, my dad served in the US Army and his unit was assigned to coastal protection and he was stationed at posts in Brooklyn, Long Island, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

My parents were married while my dad was in the Army and they looked for places to live in Brooklyn so my mom could be closer to my father stationed in New York.  But after being turned down as tenants, she returned home and lived in an apartment in my father’s parent’s house in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Oceanport. My mother didn’t think people wanted to rent to young GI’s at the time.

 

 

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany during my grandfather’s war, World War I.

In 1926, Congress passed a resolution that the “recurring anniversary (of this day) should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”

I like that.

Thanksgiving…I am kind of thankful the British Merchant Navy didn’t take fourteen year olds.

Prayers for peace, good will, and mutual understanding between nations.

And maybe those same sentiments amongst ourselves as well so I can take my head out of the sand and go back to watching TV news again.

Happy Veterans Day.

Thanks to all those who have served!

You’re soldiers of God, you must understand
The fate of your country is in your young hands
May God give you strength
Do your job real well

(from Sky Pilot, by Eric Burdon and the Animals)

My dad in the Army with his mom and dad
Everybody in Hollywood Farts

Everybody in Hollywood Farts

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Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory has detected explosions on the planet Mars!

A large meteor has crashed in to a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey!

“Something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake…it’s indescribable, I can hardly force myself to look at it, it’s so awful!  The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent.  The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate!

It’s Halloween this week.

On this day in 1938 occurred maybe the best example of fake news in this nation’s history.  More than a million people were convinced that Martians were invading the earth, by a young 23 year old radio announcer named Orson Welles as he presented his version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on national radio. Panic broke out, terrified people jammed highways. It is said a woman ran into an Indianapolis church during evening services and yelled “New York has been destroyed!  It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!”

 

I learned recently while writing something for work that Halloween is commercially second only to Christmas in the amount of revenue it generates.

We experienced this while in Florida with three trips to pumpkin patches, hayrides, pumpkin painting, carving tools, decorations for the windows from Michaels, and costumes from Party City.

I’ve had the pleasure these last few weekends of being able to spend some quality time with all three of my grandsons.  We don’t get to see them enough, especially the Florida kids.

Having grown up in New Jersey and spent the rest of my years in Northern Virginia Octobers are typically cool.  In fact while we were in Florida, Virginia experienced a frost.  However in south Florida it was in the 90’s.  Great for me, because I love the heat; not so great for the two large pumpkins we carved, one with a traditional jack-o-lantern face and the other with a ghost carved in it, because by the end of the first 24 hours the mold had grown in the cut outs and by the end of the second 24 hours they were sinking from rot.  Next year just painted pumpkins.

 

This past weekend once again we experienced the bad in our world.  Another shooting in a house of worship, this time in Pittsburgh, at a Jewish synagogue during Saturday morning services.  There were eleven dead worshippers.  Six were injured including four police officers who, it has been reported, ran into the gunfire.

And the week before that we had make shift bombs being sent to prominent past and current political figures by another no doubt disturbed individual.

 

And that weekend I was in Florida I read Amy Schumer said that any football player who doesn’t kneel with Colin Kaepernick is complicit.  I take that to mean anyone who is not in favor of this kneeling protest in Amy’s world is complicit.  I take a little offense to that, but the world is her stage and she is in a position of influence.  And there are countless messages of influence and hate on the internet, network TV, movies, print, and still in fact, on the radio.

“Everybody in Hollywood farts.”

This profound statement was uttered by my grandson Christian while in the drive through of McDonalds, after he presented us with his gift of flatulence in the car, while waiting for his Chicken McNugget Happy Meal.  He, of course, was referring to Hollywood, Florida where he lives.   I of course, thought it was brilliant.

I think it’s great that Amy Schumer has her celebrity and her Hollywood (CA) status and I suppose that gives her the privilege to promote her opinions and spread her ideology on social media.

Yeah, but you know what?   Everybody farts in Hollywood.

And everybody farts in Herndon, Virginia too, and everywhere else for that matter.

And we all put our pants on one leg at a time.

We are all human.

 

But sadly we are not all the same.

At least if it’s just me with saliva dripping from my rimless lips as they quiver and pulsate from reading my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds, and watching my TV,  who is exposed to all this I can just say phooey!

Some folks don’t know how to say phooey.  They don’t know how to process information in the proper context or ignore it for what it is.  They take it seriously.  It may fuel their hate or trigger something in a mind that may not be stable as yours, mine, or Amy Schumer’s.

Some of that flatulence is able to permeate further and deeper and stimulate sometimes unthinkable actions.

Some folks believe what they hear and read as the truth and they panic, maybe jamming the highways,

Maybe rushing into houses of worship and yelling…

Or maybe worse.

 

So to the twenty or so people in my social media universe who might read this, I promise I will turn down any offers to do Super Bowl commercials this year.  And I know it must sound like a privilege ass sacrifice but it’s all I got!

 

And I suppose I have to confess I am guilty too so,

“Oops, excuse me, I guess I just farted!”

My bad!

 

Prayers go out to all those victim’s families, those victims themselves that are still fighting for healing physically and will be long term emotionally; their friends, the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and everywhere, houses of worship everywhere, the leadership and first responders in Pittsburgh and everywhere, and all of the rest of us who are responsible for working to help build a better world that my grandkids and your grandkids will be able to live civilly, safely, happily, and harmoniously.

My Three Little Chickens

My Three Little Chickens

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I guess I should be a little embarrassed.

Approximately a year and a half ago I was celebrating National Meatball Day.  I didn’t miss that one.

But this week I apparently  missed National Daughter’s Day.

National Daughter’s Day, how could I have not seen that one?

I blew a perfectly good Dad opportunity.

Because you know, I have three of them.

Daughters that is.

Maybe I should have known, but since I haven’t been paying too much attention to social media lately when I did, I saw all these nice photos with my friends praising their beautiful daughters.

So I felt guilty.

I had no photos…I had no praises.

I do love my daughters…even more than I love meatballs.

Therefore I thought it only fitting to give them some blog space too.

So I had to Google this Daughter’s Day thing.

And apparently National Daughter’s Day is:

 

Celebrated September 25, but some celebrate it on the Fourth Sunday in September. In some countries it is celebrated on October 1, and World Daughters Day is September 28.

 

Okay so after reading that I think I am good.  I don’t really think I messed up at all because it sounds like you can pick any day near the end of September and call it Daughter’s Day.   So in my world, today is Daughter’s Day,  I am going to celebrate it today.

 

 What is the reason this day was created?… In developed countries Daughters Day is a day to celebrate the joy and wonder of having a baby girl and raising a daughter.

 

Though sometimes I wonder lately if I live in a developed country, I have definitely experienced this joy and wonder thing with my daughters.

Like the time I wondered what one of my daughters was thinking trying to go out dressed like she was?

And all the nights I wondered why they weren’t home when they were supposed to be or why they weren’t in the place they were supposed to be?

And sure there were joys too.

Obviously so many joys it’s hard for me to list them here because that would take a book.  And I am sure all my joys are also being celebrated this week by Bank of America and Citibank who recognize the importance of my daughters in our lives and in theirs.

I particularly liked the:

How to celebrate: Dads should consider taking daughters out on a date, whether to a park or for a meal. Moms should share words of encouragement and wisdom. Every parent should make their daughter feel like a princess or the little angel they are! Of course, moms and dads can spent joint family time together with the goal of celebrating what makes daughters so unique and special in a family.

Yes of course, the little angels they are!

Moms sharing words of wisdom and daughters listening? Hello…Is there anybody out there? This is the real world…I don’t think that part of the country has developed yet.

I also liked the idea of dad’s taking their daughters to a park.  Maybe I could relive the experience of trying to teach Alexa how to ride a bicycle on the W & OD trail that ended with me literally throwing the bike into the woods in frustration after multiple attempts of having her peddle while I was pushing her and then as soon as I would let her go she would stop peddling and fall over just like the routine on the show “Laugh In” over and over again.

 

I often have fun writing about my kids and I have said before they are all good sports.

The truth is my daughters have taken their share of lumps in life but they continue to rise up.

They have had some life experiences probably shared by many daughters.

And then they have had some I hope no child ever has to go through.

They have lived through their own marital and relationship traumas and in some cases abuse.

And they have lived through the death of a brother.

Yet they are resilient.

They are women now, some with their own kids (though no daughters thank God).

And they are happy.

And they are princesses.

And I suppose they are angels too, though maybe not so little anymore.

And unlike the rest of the daughters out there, they have to put up with me.

And they do a pretty good job at that too.

So happy National Daughter’s Day to Alexa, Hayley, and Savannah…my three little chickens.

 

I love you more than meatballs.

 

Cloudy

Cloudy

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What are those things?

I am not sure…they look like funny looking glasses…let me google them…it says they are called sunglasses.

Oh…what are they used for?

It says they are supposed to keep the sun out of our eyes.

Oh…why would we need those?

 

From Cloudy, a song written by Simon and Garfunkel:

 

Hey sunshine.

I haven’t seen you for a long time.

Why don’t you show your face and bend my mind?

 

Yes please, bend my mind.  I am ready.

I miss the sun.

I am sick of clouds. I am sick of rain.

And while I complain, clouds of disaster are working their evil in the Carolinas.  A report I heard this morning talked about a river that was considered at flood level when just 3 to 5 feet over normal.  They were expecting the level to reach 62 feet.

 

In spite of our seemingly never-ending clouds and showers, we had an awesome weekend.

We rode our bikes, we hiked at Great Falls.

Great Falls National Park has a startling reminder of disasters from the past that puts flooding in perspective.  A tall post with signs from years past marking the water levels of previous floods that have lifted the Potomac River to unimaginable heights in that area.  Hard to imagine as you look down at the rapids below from the overlooks, that the water level could be six or so more feet above where you are standing.

 

Our sermon this morning at church was a continuation of a series called The Wilderness, Growing in Faith When Life is Hard.

The Wilderness, a metaphor for difficult times, and how hard it is sometimes to find your way out.  And this morning’s message specifically… isn’t it amazing how God brings people into our lives at such times to help us through.

Isn’t that the truth, I could write a book about that, or maybe more accurately my wife and I live that every day.  I might already be writing that book.

And the scripture this morning was from Numbers with Moses and his party three days into the wilderness and “the cloud of the Lord was over them by day when they set out from the camp.”

The “cloud of the Lord.”

I have never thought of God in the clouds.

Maybe I am being too hard on the clouds.

Maybe God is in my clouds too.

 

I have written before of my friend Joe who passed away earlier this year and that he had a box full of vegetable seeds which were divided up amongst friends to keep the Veggie Joe legacy alive.

My first attempt earlier in the season didn’t go well but the later seeds did take and finally, I have some tomatoes.

But they are green tomatoes.

And without the sun I am afraid they may never see red.

 

The forecast is for a couple more days of rain from the remnants of what was Hurricane Florence finally reaching our area.

 

So God,  forgive me for always assuming evil in the clouds.

And I pray you put people in the lives of those affected by hurricanes, rain, flooding, and other wilderness situations just as you did in the lives of Kim and me.

I pray that you show your face and bend my mind.

And please if you would, turn Joe’s tomatoes red.

Amen

Jesus…We Are Busy!

Jesus…We Are Busy!

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This past week one of my Florida grandsons in the first weeks of his new Hollywood Hills United Methodist Church preschool (he is three),  video called me to share his project from preschool that included a working set of “lungs” (on a poster board) complete with baggies for lungs, straws for bronchi and a trachea.  It was awesome.  He is three!

Having had a background in Respiratory Therapy and pulmonary medicine it made me proud, and a little sad I had given that up that work some years ago.

It’s Labor Day.

And it is about work.

Though I had an awesome week, it was one deserving of a three day break in my opinion.

I work at a church.

Some people might think that working at a church isn’t really working.

Kind of like the Dire Straits song:

“That ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
Get your money for nothin’ get your chicks for free”

Well I certainly don’t know anything about getting “chicks” anymore and don’t want to and to the best of my knowledge working at a church doesn’t make for chick magnets anyway.

But I get work.

I like to work.

And let me tell you something, after finishing one of my busier weeks working at my church… working for Jesus is tough.

Jesus is busy!

And though sometimes I think my “to do” list is out of control, Jesus has to have a “to do” list beyond belief.

I have a hard time getting to all the things on my “to do” list, sometimes it takes me weeks, maybe an occasional month even to get to some things.

So I get it.

Two years ago today, I wrote on my Musings of an Aging Nobody, My Prayer for Hayley.

Hayley is one of my daughters.

At the end of My Prayer for Hayley I wrote, “And so my prayer for Hayley is that God answers my prayer for Hayley the same way he answered my prayer for myself some years ago.

And may she never look back.”

 

This week my prayer for Hayley was answered.  It took two years.

So Jesus, c’mon man, I know I am busy…

But it’s okay.

Because I know you are busier!

And I understand that it might take two years to get to my prayer.

I do get it.

I just hope that those that I work with are as patient with me getting to those things on my “to do” list.

This week I feel particularly blessed.

I am blessed to have a grandson in a pre-med pre-school, another starting to talk and walk, and another down the hall right now pushing his Mimi’s buttons and having a great time doing it.

And Jesus thank you for keeping me so busy.

But especially thank you for answering my prayer for Hayley.

And just like the analogy I like to use for my life…just like Secretariat winning the Belmont by 31 lengths, and never looking back,

“may she never look back.”

Again.

Christian’s lung project!