When my granddaughter, Sneaks, was little—walking and talking but not yet in school—she handed me a note from her grandmother, Grammy (my wife). The note read: “Get the turkey platter from the garage.” It was Thanksgiving and a few years before cell phones. I don’t know where Grammy was, but I was outside with some of our guests. I finally found it right where I’d put it the year before, but not where I’d put it for years before that, and so it took me a while to find it.
I have never seen my wife’s dogs fully asleep. I’ve noticed them napping, but I’ve never watched them while they were in deep slumber. I only know from episodes on TV and segments in movies that dogs dream about running and chasing. I have watched cats, but I’ve never caught on to what they dream about. They twitch their whiskers and paws and then, after their kitty version of REM, they remain motionless in their sprawl with the tip of their tongue sticking out until some distant sound snaps them awake.
I am told on a regular basis, “write something that makes us feel good.” I understand that we want to live in comfort where we gravitate toward information that allows us to relax and enjoy life and it’s wonderful to train our mind to be a positive thinker. However, in our quest to live in “happy land” there are also difficult realities whether we choose to accept them or not. In Hebrews 4:12, God’s word is described as a two-edged sword which has the power and wisdom to know all things including our conscience.
I am sure that many of you can remember when life was not so demanding and filled with anxiety or at least it seemed that way. I was raised in the city so when I had a chance to go to my grandparent’s house out in the country it was like going on vacation. They lived on a quiet overgrown road that came to a dead-end at the Kentucky River and their farm was so remote that when an occasional car would pass by we would stop and stare at it like it was entertainment.
It is important to remember that politicians are people. They have children and pets. They have worries and hopes. They have faced obstacles and suffered losses.
Too often we gain only a very shallow understanding of who the politicians are. If you know that a politician has lost a child or survived cancer, it makes it easier to see them as a person. Even if you do not agree with them politically you may find that you have a lot in common.
She called me at 4 a.m. in tears and babbling on that her new sofa had just been delivered and was 1” too long.
What?
In between her sobs and shrieks of “what am I going to do?” I finally figured out the gorgeous new sofa she had waited for weeks to be delivered was about to annihilate her carefully engineered Feng Shui.
Longtime friend, Cassie, who lives in London, tends to be a bit emotional when things don’t go as planned. She morphed into a Feng Shui fruitcake after meeting an alleged guru on the subject a few years ago.
