Alone.
Yet, not.
Large families.
There are 33 people on the wall. Kids, kids-of-heart, grandkids, Janet, myself.
There’s always something going on in a big family. Someone’s always around, nearby, or on the way.
Continue reading Clear SkiesHis solid white beard was perfectly trimmed. Occasionally, when he was trying to describe something, he’d take off his company cap and run his fingers through his full, thick head of equally white hair. It was a stark contrast to his deep black, wire-rim glasses.
Today’s his last day on the job. He’s been preparing a long time for retirement, and now, it’s here.
As we all went through the day, I’d stop by and say things to acknowledge him.
“You know, this is the last 9:15 AM at work in your career”.
He stayed busy, in thanks partly to a number of phone calls from folks he’d worked with. He said, “I’ve just been really surprised by how many nice things folks have said to me.”
I nodded my head.
My mind turns, twists, moves and churns. Earthquakes of urgent thoughts turn into raging thought tsunamis.
It’s not what isn ‘t. It’s what is.
What’s isn’t, isn’t talked about. What is, is.
Raging waters flow uphill, gather speed, then dribble down the mind’s mountainside spilling into the deepest depths, depths that do not surrender the issues of thought, whether forgotten or taught, surrendered or caught, given or bought.
Words sound large, but quiet speaks loud. Its silence heals. The healing rest, the energizing of silence slips away in our loud, boisterous, information-based system of living. Yet the need to be still and hear the leaves rustle remains, even when it’s pushed aside.
Seriously, it was the best love letter!
I was in high school. The summer before my sophomore year, I lived with and worked for my uncle in another town about an hour away. Through their church, I met two sisters, one also about to be a sophomore and one a junior.
I was pretty naïve then, like Forest Gump at a dogfight naïve.
Continue reading The Best Love Letter Ever!From the time I was a seedling, I wanted to be something worthwhile. Every day I stretched higher, farther, reaching for the sun to bathe my leaves in life giving photosynthesis.
My life in the forest ended when soldiers wearing helmets, red cloaks and armor cut me down.
I hoped the soldiers would form me into an honorable, useful item, like a fine chair, magnificent bed, or maybe a grand formal dining table. I would’ve even been satisfied to be a powerful support post in a house or mansion holding it all up.
Instead, their axes hacked me into a long, rough beam. Still, I hoped.
They loaded me in a wagon and hauled me to a city. There they cut off a smaller beam from my top, notched a side to fit over the beam, and secured my pieces with long spikes and rope.
Continue reading Cross TalkNineteen years ago, at the moment this posts, 10:02 AM on September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field killing all passengers, and the terrorists who hijacked the plane.
No one will ever know for sure how many lives the passengers saved. They had just learned that both Twin Towers and the Pentagon had been struck by hijacked planes. Instead of becoming lambs to the slaughter, they fought back as wolves against evil snakes.
The passengers weren’t looking for trouble, yet when chaos began, they met the challenge. The law-abiding citizens who had families, children, and jobs fought back to protect others on the ground.
That, my friend, is brave!
Continue reading BraveLast Friday I took my wife Janet out on the town! A five-course dinner date! I know! Right!?
But we live in the oldest town in Texas, and there’s not a great deal of five star restaurants in Nacogdoches, Texas. So we created our own “fine dining” experience in a mobile, drive around way.
I wrote down twenty restaurants and fast food joints up and down our hometown main drag. Each place was cut to its own little strip, and I put them all in a styrofoam cup that had all 5 courses scribbled on the outside. Janet blindly reached in the cup and pulled the first slip for the first course.
It was Subway. Janet objected. She said Subway had the most expensive drinks in town, so she wanted to go somewhere else. Eventually, she acquiesced, and we ordered one large half and half tea, two straws.
The second course was Bottle Cap Alley for appetizers. A quarter mile drive and we were there, but they didn’t have many choices. Basically, we settled for fried onion rings. Besides, the next course was vegetables, so we could get something healthy then.
The third course drawn, however, was another fast food place, Taco Bueno! My five-course meal deal idea was falling apart.
We had to be creative, but guacamole with fried chips was as close as we could get to vegetables.
The fourth draw for the main course drew a groan from both of us, and then the laughter. Dominos Pizza!
While they made the extra thin crust vegetable pizza, we munched on the chips, guacamole and onion rings. After that, the pizza tasted like saltine crackers with onions and tomato sauce on it.
There’s a bloated, clog up your arteries with grease feeling that was kicking in, but we were committed to a 5 course meal…
Dessert! Should’ve started there! A quick draw from the cup and it was Whataburger, the Texas standard for fast food burgers. It was a no brainer choice!
But ice cream and milkshakes don’t mix with lactose intolerance, and the scrumptious home style cinnamon rolls were 580 calories a piece! We settled on apple pies that were only 200 calories each. Did I mention they were fried?
It was fun though, and totally random! We’ll do it again, but not tonight.
Tonight Janet will be in the hospital.
We’re in Houston. At this very moment, Janet is in surgery to remove cancer from a kidney. She was diagnosed three weeks ago.
I’m scribbling to redirect my emotions, blind my thoughts, dull the heightened awareness that the future has changed.
How much, and to what extent it’s changed, we won’t know until the pathology report comes in next week.
If all goes well, this will be a one and done surgery.
If it goes really, really well, next Friday we’ll be celebrating the 15% chance that the cancer is benign.
That’ll be worth a five course meal for sure! 
Dear God,
There’s so many things I don’t understand, so I’m writing You hoping You can swoop down and take care of things, at least the questions.
Like, why do kids starve in parts of the world? And why was a child somewhere, probably a lot close than we want to think, abused beyond measure by someone who is supposed to care and love them?
And God, why do you let evil people kill in the name of false gods? And why does it rain like crazy one year, then a drought the next….wouldn’t it be better to just even it out? Continue reading Dear God
Sometimes, like today, my mind turns without mercy, like a racing heartbeat when you sit still, or a mighty rushing wind on a cloudless, sunny day.
Twisting, turning, churning within, earthquakes of never ending thoughts, thoughts about everything, turn into tsunamis. Raging waters flow uphill, gather speed on the way to the mountain top, then dribble down the backside of the mind’s mountain.
The depths don’t surrender the issues of thought. Those things taught, bought or caught by the mind don’t go away. They dawdle, swirling in and out of consciousness, but always there.
It’s not what isn’t. It’s what is. Continue reading INFJ Ramblings
It’s going to rain all day. Some say how great that is. Others say it’s horrible. It’s the same place, same day, almost the same people.
They know each other well, yet their perspectives differ vastly. It’s not that one’s right, or one’s wrong. It’s just, different.
For some, rainy days are sad, depressing, maybe even frightening when the wind roars and thunder rolls.
Maybe it’s a psychological reminder of rainy days and storms gone by, yet consequences of those days resonate in the soul. There were things to do, places to go, plans made, and now, it’s all scrapped onto a rubbish pile while the clouds cry.
Maybe it’s figurative. Maybe the sun is just being lazy, sleeping in and resting in bed all day, occasionally dozing off under the dark, cloudy covers of the sky. Continue reading Rainy Days
RabBits 