Friday Tidings

No doubt about it, the greatest weapon I own is my mouth.  I have deflated dreams, disappointed dependents, defied orders, dispersed defeat, and even tried to kill relationships…all with a flash of my tongue and a few ill-chosen words. A more conventional weapon wasn’t necessary to target the heart of those in my scope. As much as I would like to blame others for causing me to say the things I have, that wouldn’t really be fair. There always is an option when it comes to my mouth: keeping it shut. I also find it interesting that my mental hard drive remembers the words directed at me, but I seem to have selective recall of the ones I recklessly sling outward. As a child, words changed my family. One set of grandparent’s harsh words to the other set severed the relationships between them all.  Those words and their feelings infiltrated my parents and eventually they separated. Much later, on my wedding day, the two sides were so estranged due to their word wars, they hardly ...

There are plenty of reasons to love fall: some folks are enjoying cooler days, beautifully colored leaves, and for many there's football. We know just around the bend are the holidays too.  But I can’t kick the Fall Funk.  Rather than anticipating, I'm apprehensive. It’s a pervasive sense that what I think is tough now, is only going to get much tougher.  I don't always succumb to the Fall Funk, but this year it's a battle between being ruled by my feelings or choosing to rule over them. My remedy is to get away and reset my internal GPS (God’s Positive Solution).  The challenge for me at this point in my life is thinking that I can figure it all out by myself. I trust my own wisdom. Yet, I’ve made some epic blunders with this sort of bravado. My husband likens this attitude to knowing just enough to be dangerous. Knowing my Fall Funk danger levels were rising, I headed to a mountaintop. From this vantage, the eagl...

First of all, it was an accident. We were floating homemade wooden boats in the creek when one got lodged in the mud on the other side. As grandpa and grandma worked to free it, unbeknownst to us, our young grandson did his part to assist with a rock. I learned several critical lessons: Do not stand between a grandson, a rock and a stuck boat. My grandson could potentially have a future as a baseball pitcher. I have far greater appreciation for the story of David and Goliath. In the moments following the accident, my grandson also learned some important lessons: It's too late to stop a flying rock. Hurting someone else hurts you too. It had been a bull's eye to the brain. Thankfully, I could think straight afterwards, although the first night I did put the leftovers in the cupboard rather than the refrigerator. And the next day, I flunked the mental acuity test the doctor gave me; it looked strangely similar to the one they give drunk drivers. The diagnosis was for a f...

Thinking about 9/11, I wondered what it might have felt like to be a passenger on Flight 93 (the jet that crashed in a Pennsylvania field). Those 40 brave citizens, corralled in the back of the plane, soon discovered through cell phone calls the diabolical destruction at the World Trade Center. They then knew, short of a miracle, they would not live.Their heroism that day inspires hope even now. We were able to see true American spirit reigning. “Let’s Roll” became the slogan for us all. Rebuilding and restoring As those passengers realized they had nowhere to escape and less than 20 minutes to live, what did they do? They resolved to fight back and then they made a final call home. Time for last words, love, and goodbyes. My heart still aches at the thought. I read the passenger list.  A young mom with kids excited to have her home again. College bound son. Father returning from a business trip. Young, newly married couple. So unfair. I can only speculate ab...

We’ve all probably seen it, maybe even dealt with it….someone who thinks they deserve something without the effort of earning it. From my earliest memories, I recall some who were given things I would have liked to have had, but my parents said, "We can’t afford it." Later on, their mantra was, “If you want it, work for it.” After watching the London youth-led riots and our own flash mob thieves, it seems the old rules no longer apply. If you aren’t given something, go ahead and take it. There’s a creepy sense of entitlement brewing in younger and younger kids. Certainly not all kids—but enough to take notice. These thoughts took me back to my failed farm days when we were nearly as poor as the people we had working for us. No one had extra money and no one wasted it either. We worked from the time it got light until we collapsed in bed at night. I’ll always remember Earl and Betty. They were married with kids and they traveled to farms during the ...