time for SPRING!

Today the weather reached 50 plus - and it almost lulled me into hoping that spring was soon, but alas it's still january, and chances are winter still has a bit of a visit w/us. I wish that I could be better more of the day than not. But, I'm not. If it weren't for my job that demands that I get up and move, sometime it is just easier to say no, not today. And it is almost three in the morning and while the house is quiet but for two men snoring... well, sleep is not the winner for me, but pain is. So I putz around the kitchen, have a yogurt, read emails and watch cnn, pray for the people of Haiti who aren't sleeping either. How my heart aches for the Haitian people, how insignificant my worries seem when I think of what their world must be like. Thank God for the rescue and recovery and may the people get the supplies they need. While I pray for an early spring, the people of Haiti pray from much more pain than I, help me to remember ... what nowLord?

how to live w/an artic blast outside your window?!

Since May of 2007 winters are hard hard hard! I now understand and remember all the elderly I have visited over the years when they would tell me how hard the cold was for them. I always wondered why an extra bit of effort couldn't be called on to get to church on time. While I would sympathize with the folk who would tell me that mornings were not age-friendly - underneath my understanding smile one could find a pre-judgment, one of "if you really want something bad enough - you make it happen" judgments.
Well, last sunday I really wanted to be there and proclaim the Gospel - to me one of the most important jobs a deacon enjoys! The drama of the GOSPEL ! And it is drama, too, believe it - how else could it have lived all these years were it not for the drama of it all?!
I really wanted to be there, but my legs were like peg legs, I was crippled with pain and I wondered whose legs they were - they weren't mine, they weren't paying attention to my direction to move and move now! And so, they won, and I read the readings from my mom's chair. I need a church community, I need to be among people who know what it is like to feel bad, and they have risen above the "badness" of their lives and made it to church. It's all good, and deep down inside spiritual seekers know that truth. So, there's next Sunday...