We spent Memorial Day weekend with some great friends and celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. I remember in late 1987/early 1988, somewhere in there – after I had asked Leah to marry me and she had said yes – I got a phone call from a close buddy who wanted to know how I knew getting married to Leah was the right thing to do. I thought about it for a minute and said, “I simply can’t do anything else.” I have a much more romantic answer than that and use it regularly, but there is a simple truth in what I said. Every element in my being was moving forward at whatever this pace of existence is, and every element in unison was expecting that march to continue with Leah. Period. Now I recognize it on a more biblical level – she completes me, and the two of us are truly one in the image of God. Back then, I told my buddy the truth. I couldn’t do anything else. 24 years later, I’m glad I was so helpless.
On Looking at the Moon
Last night there was a hangnail moon over the lake. Just a sliver on the bottom right side of the moon. For some reason around 1 am eastern time, it was almost red. There are a ton of different really important things you can discuss with a good friend on the dock at 1 am, but none quite so revealing as the importance of looking at the moon.
Summertime
To live near a high school, probably any school for that matter, on the last day of classes is to see a world transformed. The sullen teenagers who only days before were slouching disheveled and out of sorts down the road to the schoolhouse are now re-born; titans of all they survey, heads high and spirits light they have the energy of a thousand suns. With today’s schedules, though, it will be more like 70 or so, after which they will hear the dreaded call to breakfast and for another school year.
But that’s for later. For now, summertime is a tonic, a cure all, a relic revived at this time every year when we all realize that once we were those laconic kids who so sought this one day, this beginning of everything good, that it practically hurt to move those last few days of May. Tomorrow held no demands save our own wishing. Remember?
Summertime. And, if you leave enough room, the living is indeed easy.
“The Wandering” Band
Last night I got to hear a band called “The Wandering”. No relation to my posts here. That I know of.
The Single-Mindedness of Vegetables
We had a bad storm last night. Kids-and-wife-safe-in-the-basement-dumb-ass-father-standing-in-the-(exterior)-doorway-trying-to-see-if-the-garden-was-okay-kind-of-storm. Like a couple of tomato plants and some beans are worth taking a bolt of lightning for. Maybe. Now that I think about it. Anyway, the hail whacked things up a bit, but everything survived.
Good Theology
Having been caught up in countless discussions lately regarding the proper reading of scripture, or the real intent of our Creator, etc., it was with some satisfaction that I listened to my son play “Farther Along” during the service on Sunday morning. Not only was his version of the hymn very moving; somewhere about midway through I decided the Appalachian simplicity that brings a trusting commitment to one’s faith and the realization that “we’ll understand it, all by and by” is good theology.
Courage
Took the whole family to an auction last night benefitting a foundation seeking a cure to childhood cancer. Until you see a father stand before a few hundred carefree people and describe his son’s losing battle against cancer and the surviving family members’ continued commitment to battle the disease in his honor, you don’t know the meaning of courage.
We brought a few things home from the auction. We left behind a little money that will absolutely help. We carry with us an undying respect for one family’s courage, and a sparkling recognition of our own luck.
Rope and Chain 