We jumped at the chance to help take care of three grandkids while their mom and dad did duties at a church camp retreat! It’s what grandparents do.
We jump in and help, you know? All for one, and one for all! Do it for the team!
Oh, did I mention it was at Lake Tahoe? In a cabin setting? Second story waterfront view? Alright. Well, SURE! Happy, happy, happy to fly from Texas to help!!
Our job was to help entertain the three munchkins, ages 6, 4, and 2, even though they all answer “and a half” when asked their age.
Life is odd like that. By the time you’re my age, you round down. In fact, birthdays are now Pretend To Have Ten Fewer Candles on the Cake Day! Besides, it saves the environment from candle pollution and the smoke detector doesn’t go off!
Anyway, at the retreat center, Janet and I discovered there was no adjoining door between the rooms. In fact, there were three queen size beds in our room….with only one bed in Mommy and Daddy’s room.
Pour two cups of pride into a large mixing bowl while forgetting all the bad things you’ve done.
Add cup and half of good works to a cup of following church norms. Extra flavor occurs when family activities are sacrificed to accommodate church commitments.
Carefully compare yourself to others who’ve done worse things, then generously sprinkle in bowl when you need to feel good about yourself.
Smile continuously at those like you, but shake your head in “pity and concern” for those in need of God. Demonstrate disdain for particularly sinful people, and keep your distance unless, of course, on a church mission trip.
Carefully sift from consciousness all personal weaknesses, struggles, failures, sin and wrongs against others. Hide sifted mixture in large Tupperware container in back of your memory pantry. Use multiple containers, when necessary, and cover with black trash bags to insure no one accidentally sees your Tupperware. Continue reading Pharisee and Believer Recipes→
The callousness of day-to-day activities seem to dwarf moments in life that make it real, alive and special.
If life were an onion, the outer shell is work, chores and all the necessary tasks of living. The outer, crusty shell of the onion can easily overwhelm the core and inner layers where the best and most treasured memories, events and times are held.
Peel life back layer by layer, day by day, and most days aren’t really appreciated, truly experienced, or even remembered, at least by me. It’s an observation, not a condemnation.
Nature itself seems to place our mind on auto pilot to mindlessly glide through the events of the day. Continue reading Taste an Apple→
Sometimes it’s impossible to see past today. Sometimes, not.
During a little boy’s one year birthday party at a gymnasium, his kind-hearted, gracious, 76 year great-grandmother was chasing the toddler as he carried a basketball. He would throw it; she would retrieve it, just so he could throw again.
After a few minutes, he tired of the game and toddled off to something else on the other end where all the activity was.
Alone on the end of the basketball court, she picked up the basketball again and I assumed was about to put away. Instead, she bounced it several times while walking in her black dress pants, blouse and square heel black dress shoes. On the third bounce, the ball hit her shoe and rolled along the court toward the basketball goal.
She has road rage. She laid on her horn while passing my truck near the University. I looked beside me and there she was, driving a little blue car yelling at me like a demon possessed llama with rabies. Reading lips isn’t my forte, but she wasn’t blessing me.
I quickly thought back. I’d been driving in the same lane for half a mile, going the speed limit, and hadn’t run a red light or anything else to tick her off. Yet here she was at the red light, saluting me with one finger, with no idea why.
She zoomed by going faster than a NASCAR speed limit while she hugged the center line like she was tight roping across the Grand Canyon.
The first time I saw them was when my daughter tugged on my shirt sleeve in church. She nodded slightly to the row over from us or I would not have noticed.
Everyone was seated, and in the middle of a row of college students, one young lady was discretely using sign language to interpret for the young man sitting next to her.
He was a tall, slender guy, maybe twenty years old, with tiny hearing aids perched on each ear which were almost completely covered by his hair.
He watched her hands from the corner of his eye as she interpreted in sign language to him for the rest of the service. She nonchalantly signed the words occasionally moving her fingers in rapid succession to spell out a word or name. Continue reading Signs To See→
The road is icy and what little moonlight there is hides behind deep, dark clouds and ominous sky. It’s midnight, and although the temperature is below freezing, the harsh, rushing north wind makes it seem colder by the minute.
The wipers swipe the windshield, back and forth, back and forth. Part rain, part snow, part sleet strikes the glass as if it were an all out assault. The heater blows on high, and even with a coat, gloves and extra socks, nothing keeps up with the bone chilling cold outside.
Like an impending doom, the cold surrounds the body and car trying to overtake both driver and machine to remove all heat, and movement, from both. Continue reading Down The Road→
Slowly walking with my four daughters through the Houston Galleria, we passed a Zale’s jewelry store.
I’m not sure who first noticed the couple inside, but they quickly captured our attention. The couple was looking at rings, and because they were trying them on her left ring finger, we assume it was a wedding ring.
The guy wore flip flops, blue jean shorts and a nice sleeveless t-shirt showing off his well developed muscles. His hair was stylishly combed straight down on all sides.
She wore a cream colored sun dress with sandals, and her flowing brown hair was curled on the ends.
Everything about this couple was normal, except they were midgets.
When my oldest son was 4 years old, we were on our way to “Life Chain”, a pro-life activity where everyone stood silently holding signs along the business route in support of life. There were hundreds of people participating and the silence was, in and of itself, peaceful.
What I remember the most, however, was the drive. Blake sat next to me and asked where we were going. Thinking a short answer would suffice, I told him it was to support babies who hadn’t been born. As kids will do, he filled his logic train by peppering me with, “Why?” over and over.
Honestly, I didn’t want him to know about abortion, but after answering a couple of questions vaguely, I let the word “abortion” slip out. He zeroed in like a heat seeking missile. Continue reading The Baby Dies→
She was a cute little girl, about 9 years old, with her hair in corn rolls and little rubber bands at the end of each braid. She and her mother were walking up the sidewalk toward the restaurant, but her mother forgot something and stepped back to her car. The girl just stood on the sidewalk.
We were leaving, and quite frankly, I was talking to my brother-in-law as we obliviously walked past the little girl. Turnabout is fair play, because I suspect she didn’t give either of us a moment’s notice either.
She did, however, zero in like a heat seeking missile on my wife, Janet. After passing a few parked car bumpers, we realized Janet was no longer with us. We turned around and Janet was kneeling down looking the little girl eye to eye.
The little girl was mesmerized as Janet spoke to her with a compassionate, peaceful smile on her face. She stared in her eyes soaking up the gentle words and kindness that naturally flow from Janet’s spirit as they talked briefly back and forth. Continue reading You’re Pretty→
Stories about family, faith, friends and funnies. Pull up a chair. Grab a cup of coffee and laugh, cry, ponder and inspire about ordinary events of this wonderful, ever changing, bubbling pot that we call "every day life".
