Friday Tidings

I used to go to the butcher and get bones for our dog Angel.  What a treat. She’d take one firmly from my grasp and go to her favorite spot in the yard, chewing on it for several hours. Afterwards, she would head deep into the forest surrounding our home, burying it in some hidden trove. I don’t recall ever seeing her go back to retrieve the bones she had buried.  Angel seemed to have no need for old bones. That got me thinking about “bone digging” and things buried in the past. I have this tendency, if I’m not careful, to go to my own personal bone yard and dig up the old nasty disgusting bones of long ago issues—things that are really better off buried and forgotten. Forgetting the old bones Once unearthed, the bone of contention is again on display for reruns of all the bad feelings. Quite a few things fit in this category: lost dreams, broken hearts, poor choices, harsh words, worthless arguments. You get the idea. When I was younger, my arguments could be class...

My parenting viewpoint is a bit outdated. Much has changed. Even though it’s still a 24-hour day, things cost a lot more and many parents tackle two or three jobs. To say that raising a child in the 21 st century is challenging would be a gross understatement.  Besides the job balancing act, the parenting act is even harder. A child requires full time maintenance—from someone. 21 st Century parents need love, support, and copious prayers. To honor mothers and fathers on just a single day, doesn’t seem fair in today’s world. They deserve much more. My son-in-law Jason is now taking his fathering turn. Within minutes of the birth of his son he fearlessly and tenderly wrapped him in a blanket and held him close.   As my grandson grew, Jason blended patience and firmness, ruggedness and kindness. Fathers play a critical part in who their child becomes.  And if my grandson is an indication, the foundation is strong for a successful life. Jason, like most da...

Way back in the Dark Ages, when I graduated from high school, my classmates and I had a chance to vote for fellow classmates that we felt represented the “Most Likely to…” We’d choose one boy and one girl for each category.  I was never more surprised when I found out that I had been selected as the girl most likely to succeed. Of course, in my eighteen year-old mind “most likely to succeed” meant rising to the top, making lots of money or maybe even become famous while doing so. Obviously, my manic attack of schoolbooks and being fixated on grades had had an effect on my fellow classmates. If someone like me could have that single-minded approach to high school, then it made sense that taking that same approach to college would yield even better results. I owe my class an apology. I never became the girl most likely to succeed. I burned out too soon. My hyper-inflated sense of what success meant had led me to beat down everything in my path on my way to being number one. Victor...

June marks the beginning of the halfway point in another year. Not a bad time to reflect on what we’ve done and what we still hope to do before year’s end.  It also got me thinking about what foundational things I learned in each of my decades. By Age Ten I Learned: It is a lot easier to have my parents know that I did my best than explain to them why I didn’t try hard enough. By Age Twenty I Learned:   Finding the perfect mate has just as much to do with me as it does with him. By Age Thirty I Learned: Career planning should be done in pencil. The career path we planned didn’t work like we thought. But what did work, we never could have imagined.  By Age Forty I Learned: The dream of having a family comes with a real need for Someone bigger than we are to help us (and them) make it. My dad age 10 By Age Fifty I Learned: Suffering a loss (or many losses) is part of living. I realize that the greatest gift I have i...