dum spiro, spero

OUCH!

Breath quickens as frustration takes hold. It’s just for a second as I examine the damage. Although it was violently clipped, the foot and its toes will be okay. There is no permanent damage. Nothing is broken. 

The remnants of this event are clear. A new landscape has been created in the living room. Rolling hills of black dirt sporting green stems and leaves cover the floor. At center stage in this new scenery sits an upended ceramic pot spilling its contents in a large mound. What was an ancient Spider Plant has crashed and will be in dire need of intensive care. 

I took a deep breath. Not so bad. I can deal. 

Wake Up!

"Thankfully, that heat blast from the car bomb wasn't a few inches closer, or I'd have a perpetually surprised look on my face after having my eyebrows burned off.  Even in my shitty life, I can find small mercies to be grateful for." (A Shameless Little Con by Meli Raine)

There is something you're praying for.  It might be for you.  It might be for a child, friend, co-worker or parent. It sometimes consumes you.  And, admit it, sometimes you feel abandoned. You feel that you're talking to the ceiling.  You wonder if you've lost your mind asking an invisible deity to help you when you hear nothing but the silence of an empty room. You begin to believe that He gave up on you.

A free book from Amazon and a sermon combine to remind me that I am not alone.  Jesus didn't die on a cross to give up on me.  He died FOR me.  He said MY name before He said, "Yes, I am willing to suffer and die on a cross."

Too Heavy

On one occasion, I remember being re-introduced to my first grand-daughter with the words, “Hi.  Have you met the Question Factory?”

We still believe she may be a lawyer in her upcoming years.  Perhaps she’s mellowed a bit – I’m not certain.  Perhaps it’s only that an introspective analysis of her world allows her to ask only tough questions.  Her parents would know.

UnSplash.com

Corrie ten Book’s father was a German watchmaker.  From all over the country, people brought their timepieces to him as he was revered for being an accomplished repairman.

Once a week, he made the trek to Amsterdam for a variety of purposes, one being to check the most accurate timepiece of the era at the Naval Observatory. 


On this day, according to the recollections of Corrie in her book, The Hiding Place, she accompanied her father.

Praying Hands

If you grew up in a Catholic grade school, you might remember what it was like to attend daily Mass.

Franciscan nuns made certain we were kneeling in formation-like rows exhibiting the traditional praying-hands posture.  Hundreds of us posed in exactly the same way, pew by pew, must have been a little bit impressive.

When I was 8, I doubt that I spent any time at all considering what it meant to hold my hands in this position.  I'm sure that I was more concerned that fingers were straight, pointing upward, hands tightly together with the thumbs crossed in the proper direction.  The nuns were watching!

Now I lay me down to sleep . . .

Long ago, I was taught this everybody-knows-it bedtime prayer.  I always thought it a bit scary, though.

And, like many "traditional" prayers, it has become so common that we tend to just zip right through it by rote memory.  That's a little scary, too.

How sincere might any prayer be when it takes just seconds to recite and then, moments later, you might not even remember saying it?