I’m taking time out this week from “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” to honor the reason for the season: a tiny baby born in a cold and undeniably bare bones environment to parents of unbelievable faith. The life of Jesus is the footprint our lives should extend from. Imagine a world where the hungry are fed, where violence is replaced with patient understanding and love, where complaints are replaced by acts of kindness and words of encouragement. Such a Pollyanna outlook, wouldn’t you say? Yet there is so much room for improvement in this world we live in, a vast galaxy of hearts that need to soften and words that should never be spoken and actions that should never be done. I am concerned for us as a society. Our emphasis on personal appearance is overwhelming, even to the most attractive of us. We do upkeep on everything, our homes, cars, ourselves, etc., yet not much of anything is done to strengthen our souls. Our spirit is who we are. Our soul is the part of our spirit that listens to God and follows the direction of the Holy Spirit. If we never bother to quiet ourselves and listen to…
Month: December 2012
Home away from Home
I entered the hospital room with great trepidation. She’d been in and out of consciousness for days. They had warned me, my siblings had, that she looked bad. “Be prepared,” they told me. I saw my father standing next to the bed, slightly bent over, and heard him speaking to my mother, his voice soft and low. He looked up and acknowledged my presence, then turned back to my mother and leaned close. “Jackie, Mary Ann is here. Open your eyes.” Then he stepped out of the way and into the hall, thoughtfully allowing for a moment of privacy between me and Mom. I gingerly approached the bed and could barely believe what I beheld. Bending down, I looked her in the eyes and held my gaze for a moment without saying a word. I wanted to be sure she was with me on this, and I could always tell by her eyes. Then I reached a hand out toward her head and gently tugged at her hair while I put on a face of disgust. Her eyes were locked on to mine, penetrating and questioning. I groaned and started to snicker at the absolute wreck she’d become during…
Jackie’s Rules
Jackie’s Rules Mother had rules to live by and she was very diligent in keeping them. One of the most important rules was: if you, as the mother, came down with the flu or any other illness, you were allowed only one and a half days in bed. The first day and night you were to sleep as much as possible. The second day was to be spent in bed until about mid afternoon. Then, the rule was, get up, get a shower, get dressed and be ready to go out to dinner the minute your husband walked through the door. The theory was, follow those direction and you would be completely recovered by the next morning. There was no way on God’s green earth that Jackie was going to miss Thursday night date night. If she was deathly ill on Wednesday, she was somehow recovered enough by Thursday. Thursday night date night was not to be missed under any circumstances. It didn’t matter how long it took to drag herself out of bed, how sick she was, how severe her migraine, she was going out to dinner and nothing short of death would keep her from it. Mother firmly…
Helmet Head
Mother’s humor could be downright troubling and troublesome. She often got the snickers at the wrong time and in the wrong place, landing herself in embarrassing situations. She liked to blame her dad because he was English and as everyone knows, the English have a rather odd sense of humor. Mom and Dad raised us in the Catholic Church and although they weren’t particularly religious people, they were good Catholics and good practicing Catholics never missed mass on Sunday. This held true even in the summers when we were on vacation at the lake cabin which sat on the far side of our treasured mountain lake, the side without a road. The cabin was (and still is) accessed either by boat or by hiking over the mountain by way of a well worn trail. Imagine getting seven children ready for church on Sunday mornings, piling nine people into a sixteen foot ski boat and crossing a lake to get into the family station wagon to drive into the local town to attend church. Now, that was dedication. That was devoutness. That was nuts. Our summertime church was a small rock structure in Rathdrum, Idaho. Often, not a single one of…