The handwriting on the envelope

We received three high school graduation invitations this year. All of them were from young men. Three different high schools. Three different cities. These three boys don’t know each other. In all three cases, it’s their parents that are our connections with them, but they are all associated with us in different ways.

I noticed something about all three of the invitations as soon as I pulled them out of the mailbox: the handwritten address on the envelope. It’s just so rare to get a piece of mail that has been addressed by hand any more. Technology has made fancy schmancy labeling and printing more accessible to us all and we tend to view it as a time-saving technique as well as good excuse to use a curly script font that mocks actual cursive writing. Email and social networks have also eliminated our need for handwritten invitations, or letters, or any other correspondence for that matter.

I know that high school graduation invitations are not really sent with the intention of having the recipient actually show up at the ceremony. I realize that those programs are usually in gyms or auditoriums that have limited space. All the parents, siblings, grandparents, and step relatives usually take up all the allotted number of tickets per student.

And that’s OK. We love you and are very proud of you and we will be happy to go if you really want us there, but we don’t necessarily have to personally see you and 400 of your closest friends walk one by one across the stage.

Truthfully, unless there is a really awesome, well known speaker giving the commencement address, the ceremony itself it lost on those of us who are not directly involved. If we do go, we sit there remembering our own high school graduations and then we start thinking about the course our lives have taken since then and that leads us to thinking about all the things we need to be sure and tell you before you pack your car for college but, since you’re not our child, it's not really our place to tell you. Then we get overwhelmed by it all and need medication to get over it, so perhaps it’s better if we just stay home anyway.

I also get that a graduation invitation means a gift is in order. I’m totally OK with that. In fact, I kind of like getting a reminder about things like that. As long as the invitation stays on my kitchen counter or tacked to the refrigerator, I know I still need to respond. Without it, I’m likely to forget to acknowledge it at all.

Still, I love to get the invitations. It makes me feel special. It reminds me that we belong in a group of people that wants us to share their joys. I love that.

I especially love it when the invitations have been addressed by hand. That extra effort means something to me. I appreciate the person with the pen in hand actually sharing something of themselves that is so personal: handwriting. Handwriting is very individual and telling enough that the whole science of handwriting analysis was developed. While it may not be an exact science, I do think there’s something to it.

For instance, I knew immediately that two of the graduation invitations we received had been addressed not by the young men, but by their mothers. I could just tell by the handwriting. It was like that old Sesame Street song… “one of these things is not like the other....” Moms 2, Sons 1. Or in my mind, SON WON.

I don’t really know why, but the one that the young man wrote himself made a definite impact on me unlike the other two. I felt like it wasn’t just a proud mom saying look what my son has accomplished (which, of course, there’s nothing wrong with). It was a young man himself saying, “this is important not just to my parents, but to me, and I want to share it with you.” Or maybe he was saying something like, "I have no idea why you care, but am glad you do."

Of course, I don’t know how much his mother had to prompt him to address those envelopes, but nonetheless, his extra effort spoke to me. It was just a personal touch that made me feel like he was actually thinking of us when he wrote our names. At a time when he had every right to be thinking he should be the center of attention, he actually took the time to think about us. A rare thing in today's world.

That was sometime in the last month. I hung onto all three of the invitations for a few days before I responded. I don’t see any of these boys on a regular basis. I bought cards for each of them (spending a good deal of time trying to find just the right card for each individual), added some money, and sent them off.

Last week I got another envelope in the mail. The address was handwritten in familiar penmanship. I opened it to find a thank you note. It’s the only one I’ve received so far (thank you notes are rare these days too, but that's another story). As I already knew, the handwritten message inside was from the same young man that addressed his own invitations. He thanked us for the money, but more than that he mentioned how great his God was. I felt like he was really thanking God for everything that was happening in his life and he was letting me be privy to this personal praise to God.

A handwritten thank you note from a young man I hardly know reminded me that every good and perfect gift comes from above. And for me, this kid and his handwriting is one of those good and perfect gifts to this world.

This kid with his mother’s smile, his father’s stature, and God’s heart gave me hope for the Class of 2011. And for the rest of us.


Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

Somebody call 911

As if the videos and pictures from the Japan earthquake and tsunami weren’t already stretching the limits of what once was unfathomable in my mind, now the very real surreal has shown up in my own back yard. I’m left wondering about the world we’re living in.

Actually, it was my own front yard.

Coming home from church Sunday afternoon, we turned on to our street to find a whole row of parked law enforcement vehicles greeting us. There were at least 3 city police cars and one county sheriff’s deputy car. One had the warning lights flashing.

As we pulled into our driveway and parked, yet another sheriff’s deputy drove up. He pulled into the rear of the line of cars, which was now right in front of our house. We got out of our car about the same time he did and we headed toward the street to ask about what in the world was going on.

He stepped into our yard of offered the explanation that “one of our neighbors” had shot themselves in the leg and then thrown the gun into the empty, wooded lot that is immediately adjacent to ours.

Yes. Of course. That was exactly what I thought it was.

What? Your neighbors don’t do that kind of thing?

What kind of world do I live in??

He said the law enforcement officers were scouring the lot looking for the gun, hoping to find it before someone else did.

Then he made some witty comment about the city cops being slow and he, a county officer, needed to go help them out.

I am grateful and especially thankful to know that they were looking for just a gun and not some crazed criminal wielding it. I am even more thankful that so many officers were indeed involved in the search.

I’m glad that at least one of the officers felt the need to offer us some kind of explanation for what was happening at our property line. I know he was probably repeating the alleged victim’s testimony, but I don’t believe that’s what really happened.

Who in the world, after shooting themselves, throws the gun away?

Who would tell a police officer that story and expect them to believe it?

What kind of world do I live in?

Later that day, again driving home, I heard sirens and saw a big billow of black smoke beyond the trees not too far away. Less than a mile from our house a field was on fire. FIRE. It was an empty field, but lined by houses and roadways. As I drove by I could see the red flames that were taller than I. There were several big fire trucks, lights flashing. Almost everyone driving by, myself included, slowed down to gawk at the scene. Some even pulled off the road to watch. I probably would have too if I had not been on a time schedule.

While the fire was close enough to home for me to be able to see and smell the smoke from my front porch, it didn’t actually appear to be a threat to me. But it could have been.

By the end of the day I had been inundated with images of threats all around me, near and far, but ultimately I was safe and unharmed.

But not unaffected.

I felt as if my imaginary safety boundaries were shrinking.

What kind of world do I live in and where are those safety boundaries anyway?

I felt it hard to turn away from the images of Japan on my computer screen and TV. The cars and buildings and lives being swept away by the wave are thousands of miles away, but they made me cry right here in my own house.

Standing right here in my own house, I couldn’t stop looking out of my bathroom window at the woods next door. As the wind blew the leaves around, I thought I kept seeing tiny flashes of the sun reflecting on something shiny underneath the leaves. A gun? Maybe. Maybe not.

Standing in my yard, those same leaves blowing across my feet, I felt my face getting hot even though I wasn’t really close enough to those flames to feel the heat.

I have been a victim before, directly and indirectly. I’ve been assaulted, had a gun pointed at my head and been threatened with death. I’ve seen my husband’s office ransacked and the empty space where the computer equipment used to be; the hallways littered with broken glass and splintered wood. My phone has rung in the middle of the night in response to an alarm, after which I sat outside on a bench waiting for the police to return from chasing a robber toting off the stolen goods.

I survived all of that, but not imperviously. The feelings and memories have marked my perspective. I have been influenced by it all.

Yesterday I survived a tsunami, a shooting, and fire. And I am not the same.

What kind of world do I live in?

Maybe the most important words in that sentence are not “what kind of world,” but rather, “I live.”

I live.

I live where there are no real safety boundaries anyway. I live in a place and time that was chosen by a higher power than I. I live, with every breath I take, surviving the trauma and tragedy of this world; being spared some of it; having to taste some of it.

I live affected by it all and it makes me different.

I am left to live so that I can make a difference.

I need to get busy.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! Galatians 2:20-21

The Wave

My sisters and I all grew up in the same house. Two of us even shared a corner bedroom. Still, sometimes when the 3 of us get together and talk about something from our childhoods, I almost never remember it the same way the other 2 remember it. I don’t know if they will remember these things the way that I do.

In the house we grew up in, which is the same house our parents lived in for over 40 years, there were two hall closets. The smaller of the two was, I think, by design supposed to be a linen closet because its breadth was narrow and it had shelving from ceiling to floor. As far as I can remember, we never kept sheets or towels in it. The shelves were filled with books. There were two sets of Britannica encyclopedias that took up most of the shelf space. There was also a pencil sharpener that Dad had mounted front and center on the middle shelf, which was most often the reason any of us even opened that closet door.

Near the bottom shelf were a stack of our mother’s yearbooks. Some of those were from her own high school days, others were from the schools where she worked as a bookkeeper. Right next to those was a couple of other tattered, old books with dingy brown covers. The binding on them was worn and frayed. The pages were glossy, but not in color. Each page had two black and white photographs on them. The entire book was nothing but photographs. The only typed print was a couple of caption lines under each photo. There were no descriptive paragraphs, just pictures of war. They were very graphic pictures of Europe during World War I and II. I don’t think I ever opened that closet door specifically looking for those books, but they often sucked me once I was there. The photographic images of extreme devastation and death always left me speechless as a child.

From that perspective, it’s not hard to understand why my dad never talked about it. We have pictures of him in his sailor’s uniform as a young man, but for a very long time that was about the only evidence we knew that showed he had that served in the Navy. He was in his eighties before I ever heard him actually tell the story of being in the English Channel on D-day.

Even though he was a man of few words about his participation on World War II, his patriotism showed throughout his entire life. Today’s evidence of that is the full size flagpole bearing the stars and stripes waving in his front yard. Only today, that flag is at half mast.

The bottom shelf of our hall closet housed books of our mother’s school memories and our dad’s war memories. Those war books were indeed our dad’s yearbooks, because he never finished high school as a boy.

He never said much about that either. But like the pictures of the handsome sailor, there was a little evidence about his education and schooling. In the dining room of that same house was a china cabinet. It was just an ordinary, everyday china cabinet. The top half had about 3 shelves enclosed with glass-paned doors. The bottom half of the cabinet consisted of 3 or 4 drawers. The top drawer was shallow. I think maybe it was designed to put napkins and tablecloths in (come to think of it, I have no recollection of where we kept any kind of linens in our house) but this top drawer was filled with papers. In among all the insurance papers and official looking documents from the Duval County School Board, from where Mom and Dad both eventually retired, there was a folder of papers that always intrigued me. It looked like some kind of standardized test and I remember that there were math equations on it. It was the test our dad took to get the certification he needed to be classified as a high school graduate. I don’t ever remember him taking any kind of class, nor do I remember him actually taking the test. He never really talked about it. He just did what he had to do in whatever way he could get it done.

I did a lot of my own school homework at the dining room table that was positioned right next to that china cabinet. On one occasion, I was in the fourth or fifth grade and we were learning about the 50 states and their capitals. Each student in the class was assigned a state and given the task of making a drawing about the state. In addition to a map of the specific state we were supposed to draw pictures of the state bird, state flower, state seal, and anything else the state was known for. My assignment was Maryland. I tried again and again to draw an outline of the state of Maryland and failed every time. Have you ever tried to draw the Chesapeake Bay? It was my demise. I wadded up several sheets of drawing paper and eventually ended up in tears because I just couldn’t do it.

Dad, always one to rig up something unconventional to make a broken thing work again, stepped in. From his garage where he kept everything but cars, he got a 10 gallon bucket, a small lamp minus the shade, and a large piece of glass. He put it all together to make the most innovative light box ever. He took a map of Maryland from an atlas and put it on the glass top, he then put my drawing paper over that, and turned on the lamp. All I had to do was trace the outline. My assignment and sanity had been rescued. He never finished school himself, but he did everything he could to make sure his three girls finished not only high school but college too.

Once we three girls started college and began leaving home for long periods of time, and eventually getting married and moving away, we developed a little ritual with each of our departures. It’s probably something a lot of people do when family from out of town leaves to go back to their own homes after a visit. We pack up the car, make one last bathroom visit, fill up our cups in the kitchen, and then we all walk outside. Standing in the driveway we hug and kiss. We pile in the car, crank it up, roll down the windows and back out of the driveway onto the street. Mom and Dad stand in the driveway and wave. They continue to stand there and wave until we have driven out of their sight.

This driveway scene has occurred every single time we’ve ever been to visit our parents, no matter where they are. The last time I left Mom at the assisted living facility she lives in now, she insisted on walking me outside and stood there with her walker in the driveway until we had driven out of her sight.

For several years now, I’ve had the very same thought and feeling every time we drove away with Mom and Dad in our rearview mirror standing in the driveway waving.

Grief. I have grieved every single time. I grieve because I think to myself, “Will this be the last time I see them?” With parents in their seventies and eighties and not living nearby, that is what you think when you leave them. So in some way, I have already grieved this passing.

It hasn’t been until now that I have thought about what they must have been thinking as they stood there in the driveway waving goodbye.

For one, longing. Longing for time to stop. Wishing things could just stay the way they were. Wishing we could all just stay together.

The other thing, they must have felt some relief. Relief in not only us taking the chaos of our own lives back to our own homes with us, but also realizing that we have outgrown the little corner bedroom of that house and sensing relief in knowing that we have homes of our own to go to that fit us better now.

I know that, because now it’s us standing the driveway waving goodbye.

We long for time to stop and wish things could stay the way they were and that we could all be together all the time. But today, Daddy, we know your spirit has outgrown this world and the only place that can house you now is a mansion built for you in glory by the King of Kings himself.

Welcome home, Daddy.

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. 2 Samuel 12:20

There are no words

Monday, September 13, 2010 Scott was called into a meeting where the stewardship committee chairman, the chairman and another representative from the personnel committee, the deacon chairman, and the pastor all sat around the conference table. Scott was not aware that this meeting was taking place until they called and asked him to come in.

At that meeting they informed Scott that due to budget constraints, his full time position as minister of music was being eliminated. He was given a sheet of paper that outlined 3 severance package details. The first of which stated that he could leave that very day and the church would provide him with one week’s pay for every year of service, which on that day would have been 13 years.

Let me say that again. He could have walked out that day. Monday, September 13, 2010.

They also gave him the option to stay until December 31, still collecting the one week’s pay for every year of service as severance. By then it would he would have reached 14 years of service.

The third detail in the severance options provided that if he secured another full time minister of music position before December 31 then he would only receive 2 week’s severance pay.

I was out of town that day. By the time I got a break in what I was doing and was able to call and check in, it was a little later in the morning. I had no idea any of this has taken place. Scott told me the news over the phone. He said that after the meeting he walked out of the office and down the hall to the choir room where he had been and still was sitting in darkness and silence. What do you say to your husband at a time like this?

There are no words.

Scott and I were very much aware of the budget difficulties. We knew something had to be done. We also knew the difficulties go way beyond just the budget woes. He and I both have been praying for 4 or 5 years, at least, for something to happen in our church; something big enough to stir the long-still waters. Losing his job was not exactly what we had been praying for, but almost instantaneously we saw it as perhaps clearing the way for that BIG thing, whatever it was, to come through. If this is how God was going to get through, then by all means, let us go. We started packing boxes immediately. I started giving things away that I didn’t want to have to move. Neither Scott nor I were totally devastated or depressed about the situation. We were just hopeful that something really grand was on the horizon for both us and for this church. How do you tell people you’re really at peace about losing your livelihood?

There are no words.

Being so ready and willing to accept what he’d been dealt and seeing it as the hand of God working in all of our lives, the most likely choice was for Scott to walk out that day, Monday, September 13, 2010. We were eager to get on with it.

However.

Back in the spring, months before any of this, Scott picked out a musical to do for Christmas. His vision was to invite as many different church choirs and individuals to join us as we could. His vision went beyond our little choir to the entire community. By the time September 13 arrived, we had already had 2 rehearsals for this musical. We were already overwhelmed by the number of people that showed up for those rehearsals, from all aspects of our community.

Scott was committed. He was committed to this event long before he ever bought the first piece of music for it. The first rehearsal back in August solidified it for him. The second one only made his commitment stronger and deeper. It was the only thing that kept him from walking away on September 13. The ONLY thing. And I will say it one more time: He could have left that day. But he wanted to see this thing through, regardless of his job. He found himself in the middle of something that was so much bigger than he and his own vision and he couldn’t let go even if he tried. How do you tell the employer that just laid you off, “well, thanks, but I think I’ll stick around for a while anyway”?

There are no words.

Since then Scott’s whole job situation has been revamped, thanks to some other church members who had visions of their own. Scott’s job has been reinstated, but with a 10% pay cut. There are two other ministers whose jobs and salaries have also been affected too, but I can’t speak for them or their stories. And really, all of that is a separate story in and of itself which maybe one day I’ll tackle. Or not. But today my focus here is the musical.

With all that has happened since this whole thing started, we have prayed diligently for this musical event. I continued to pray, as I have for the last 5 years, for something incredible to happen in this church and acknowledged that this event was a wonderful opportunity for that to happen. Specifically, I prayed that the building would be full of people to hear the message, no empty seats, and that all the other space would be taken up by the Holy Spirit, that there would be absolutely no room whatsoever left for satan to find his way in. Scott prayed for chairs. He specifically asked for the need to put out folding chairs because of the overflow crowd. He said it out loud several times over the last couple of months.

While I don’t think anyone really knows for sure, our sanctuary seats approximately 450+. Our average Sunday morning attendance is about 140.

The presentation of this musical was this past Friday night, December 3. It was set to begin at 7 p.m.

Here’s the scene at about 6:40 p.m.

Chairs, y’all. There are chairs. Some didn’t even have chairs and had to stand throughout the whole thing.

Even before the music started, something besides people began to fill up the sanctuary. As the program began it was almost as if what was going on inside the building was bigger than what the walls themselves could contain. The Holy Spirit did indeed fill the room. It’s just so hard to explain the presence…

Afterwards, the comment I heard over and over again from those who were there… “There are no words.”

Ironic, I think, that the title of the musical was “The Voices of Christmas.” There are no words for the Voices of Christmas. The thing that happened and the praises that were raised were in a language only God could understand.

Afterwards, the crowd went home, the furniture was moved back in place, the trash picked up, and the sanctuary set in order for Sunday morning. We went to get something to eat then headed home. I would have thought Scott would have been on top of the world after all this. Instead, he seemed more quiet and distant and unreadable. He had no words.

The next day I woke and got out of bed long before Scott. I went to the other end of the house to work on a project on the computer. A couple of hours later I came back towards our bedroom and saw Scott sitting on the vanity stool in our bathroom. He was just sitting there in the quiet looking at the floor. The closer I got to him, the more I realized his eyes were filled with tears.

I think in that moment we both realized the enormity of what God had done. That Scott was not capable of or responsible for whatever it was that happened with the Voices of Christmas. That in spite of his inadequacies, God used him anyway. That his faith in leaving the unknown up to God in not giving it up on September 13 resulted in a greater blessing for 500+ other people.

It was just too much; there are no words.

I suddenly understood what Isaiah meant when he said “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

We saw the King, the Lord Almighty, fill our sanctuary Friday night and it ruined my husband. Ruined him because he will never be the same. And there are no sweeter words than that.

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6:3

I can't resist the Pillsbury Doughboy, especially when he says please

Earlier this week Scott and I had to go to Wal-Mart. We had to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. I also wanted to buy some Halloween cards to mail to my sisters and parents.

Scott had been out of the prescription nose spray for several days and the doctor had finally called it in earlier that day.

If I didn’t get cards in the mail by the next day, they would not arrive before Halloween.

Needless to say, the trip to Wal-Mart was overdue. We vowed before we went in that we were only going to buy those two things – nose spray and cards. This was NOT going to be one of those spend-$100-in-less-than-1-hour trips. We were just going to run it, get the stuff, and run out before we were sucked in. Thankfully, the pharmacy and the card aisle are just a few yards apart and right by the exit. We didn’t have to walk far. Or run, as was our case.

As we walked between the cards and the vitamin aisle on the way to check out, for some strange reason Scott just happened to think about the cherry turnovers that, in our town, you can only buy at Wal-Mart. Or course, they are in the refrigerated grocery section in the complete opposite corner of the store.

Knowing that our cupboard is completely bare but not wanting to take the time to do the full re-stocking shopping, I agreed to at least one treat. I’m anticipating a glorious trip to Publix this weekend because we’re out of cereal and soup and grits and deli meat and cheese and everything else, but we do need to eat something in the meantime. Cherry turnovers it is.

We put our blinders on and headed to the cold corner. Even though their shelf placement had changed, we found the cherry turnovers and turned to leave.

Almost free. But then something else caught our eyes.

I’m not a big cherry turnover fan. I’m really not a big sweets fan, but I do like a good sugar cookie every now and then. The Pillsbury Doughboy was calling my name. In the spirit of Halloween, of course. I reasoned (justified…rationalized…!) that we weren’t buying any candy for the occasion, so 24 Spooky Cat pre-cut ready to bake cookies would be OK.

So, with nose spray, Halloween cards, cherry turnovers, and ready to bake sugar cookies, we finally got out of there. Whew.

That was a couple of days ago. It wasn’t until last night that I pulled the cookies out of the fridge to actually put them on a pan and bake them. Of course, my first reflex when I opened the box was to want to put one of the raw cookies in my mouth.

But then, I must tell you, I never felt more loved than when I read this on the box:

“Please do not eat raw cookie dough.”

They said it like they actually cared about me. And they put it right there on the front of the box instead of in small print under all the unpronounceable ingredients.

They could have said it like this:

"WARNING: Eating raw cookie dough could be hazardous to your health."
This would have sounded like they were trying to scare me, and they would have. I would have heard James Earl Jones’ voice in my head saying, “Danger, danger…”

Or they could have even just “Do not eat raw cookie dough,” without the “please.”
This one would have been voiced by Ben Stein in my head. Emotionless and not really caring one way or the other about the effects of raw dough on a human.

But, “Please do not eat the raw cookie dough” is written as if the Pillsbury Doughboy himself were saying it, followed by that giggly little chuckle that comes out when you poke him in the stomach.

Of course, Mr. Doughboy. Since you asked to nicely, I’ll not eat that raw dough.

Funny that I even noticed those words.

Interesting that they actually influenced what I was thinking and my subsequent actions.

How we say things is just as important as what we say.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 1 Corinthians 13:1

Rescued

A couple of weeks ago we came home and found this guy hanging out on our back door. We left him alone and let him be. Anyone, or anything for that matter, saying prayers over my house seemed like a good idea.
Yesterday afternoon, when I walked in the house, this is the scene I saw at the same back door:

It scared me at first because I thought it was some kind of reptile. I am not friends with the reptiles. At all (Thanks, Eve). We frequently have little skinks running around, but Marbles the Cat usually takes care of them before they get too big. I thought this was one of those icky things and it was enormous. Since I was home alone, a small panic attack ensued.

After a little closer inspection, I saw that it was more rodent than reptile. A little baby squirrel. I was relieved somewhat that it didn't have scales, but the relief didn't last long because I had no idea what to do with a little furry thing either.

I opened the glass door to take a closer look, thinking the noise and movement would scare the poor thing enough to make it run away. He didn't move. He just clung to the screen door.

Still on the other side of the screen door, I tried to get a closer look. There were flies buzzing all around him. There was no movement in him. That led me to believe he was dearly departed. I had no idea how in the world a dead squirrel could be hanging on to my screen door. Looking closer still, I saw his little chest move up and down. He was breathing.

Well, what do I do now?

After shedding some tears over the demise of this little thing, I donned some rubber gloves, gathered up a towel and a shoe box and went outside.

I exited the house from the front door and walked around to the back yard. Along the way, I saw one of his siblings on the ground. Motionless. Gone. I'll spare you the gory details about that one but let's just say I didn't have to get very close to that one to tell if he was alive or dead because, um, there were some parts of him missing.

A few steps further and there was another one. She was gone too. She still had all her parts, but the ants had taken control.

Finally to my little friend clinging to the screen door.

I took that picture before I got too close. I didn't realize he had a yellow jacket on his head until then. Poor thing. His right arm and leg had been sliced open and his head had also taken a beating, but he was still hanging on.

So far, Marbles remains mum. No confession yet.

I wrapped him in the towel. I sat down holding him in the towel. I thought he would expire soon, so I just waited. I was thinking about putting him along with both his siblings in the same hole in the ground.
Then I started thinking about everything but the squirrels just to get my mind off of it. I sat there waiting for Squirt (yes, I gave him a name) to leave this world, I talked to God about families around me; one has a newborn infant in the hospital trying to fight his way into this world; one has a barely older than teenage daughter that just made it through a double lung transplant and is fighting to stay in the world; one is a mother my age that just started chemo, again. I think she's living like she's preparing for eternity.

Life is precious. Life is hard. We need some help. We need someone to wrap us in a towel and just hold us; to hold us until we find a way to make in this world or until we find the way to make it out.

Squirt? Well, his breathing never slowed. At first when I held him in that towel he didn't move. The longer I held him the more comfortable he became. Slowly he came back to life.

When Scott got home he called the vet for advice. Squirt was alive but too weak to be just left outside. You'll be happy to know that we loaded Squirt up in the shoe box that I thought would be his casket and delivered him to an emergency vet clinic that rescues wildlife. They were very happy to have him there. And so were we.

Oh, and this other guy was out there again, too. Just above the door where little Squirt was hanging on.

Pray. Rescue the perishing. You'll be rescued yourself.

If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn't much to you in the first place. Rescue the perishing; don't hesitate to step in and help. If you say, "Hey, that's none of my business," will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know - Someone not impressed with weak excuses. Proverbs 24:10-12

Where's the Aflac Duck when you need him?

Does anybody remember that commercial where a little chubby-cheeked boy says, “Blueberries are our friends”? I’m thinking it was a Welch’s grape juice commercial from the 90’s, although I’m not sure why a grape juice commercial would be promoting blueberries, so I’m not really sure. (If you have any confirmation or YouTube link, hook a girl up, K?) Still. Every now and then, I find opportunities to quote that phrase about the antioxidant fruit.

It’s kind of like the little old lady at Wendy’s wondering, “where’s the beef?”. You would be amazed at how often I find “where’s the beef?” to be an appropriate question in an ordinary day conversation even after a whole generation has grown up never knowing that commercial even existed.

But don’t get me started on this new generation’s fast food commercials. I mean, really. The Burger King??

I was a big fan of the Barry Manilow commercial jingles. “You deserve a break today, so get up and get away, to McDonalds.” And, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there…” I’m not sure I know any current commercial jingles. Do commercials even have jingles anymore?

Lately, every time Flo from Progressive Insurance comes on the TV screen, Scott instantly changes the channel. He simply cannot look at her with all her eyeliner and perkiness nor can he tolerate her chirpy voice. I kind of like her because she can be happy about something as boringly miserable as insurance. Oh, to be that naïve and blissful about something you have to pay dearly for but pray you’ll never need.

I have my own personal issues with Jamie Lee Curtis and Activia yogurt. I haven’t seen one of those commercials lately so maybe they realized it was a bad idea, but for a while there Jamie Lee was trying to convince us to take the Activia Challenge for 14 days. But here’s the kicker, she asks us to video tape ourselves during the course of the 14 day challenge and then submit them to her.

First of all, if you didn’t know, Activia yogurt contains bifidus regularis, aka probiotic bacterium Bifidobacterium animalis. In Jamie Lee’s words, it helps regulate your digestion. In my words, it helps you “go” more regularly instead of every couple of days.

My question is, what exactly is it that Jamie Lee wants me to film?

I mean, if I eat a cup of Activia yogurt every day, chances are I’m going to eat it the same way every single day. I’ll peel off the foil lid and dip in with a spoon. I’ll likely do in the privacy of my own home and not out in public because who wants to be seen eating digestion regulating yogurt? It would only fuel my nemesis’ impression that I am full of it. So, if I were filming that portion, even my surroundings would be the same. Every day for 14 days.

The one thing that would change would be, well, my digestion. Does she really want me to film the evidence of that?

It would certainly be easy to do. So easy in fact that I think a caveman could do it.

Too bad they fired him and hired some weird, plastic googly eyes with dollar bills for a mustache. Ok, that’s enough. I gotta go.

No, not that kind of “go.”

Which, by the way, I would not film even it I did.

You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair? 1 Corinthians 12:20-24 The Message.