Balm for the Soul

Stumbled, quite literally upon this.

Final Instructions
Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with veryone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be
kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is
faithful and he will do it.
1 Thess 5:16

I have a lot to say about his and why this is welcome. But for now, I'll let it speak and not muck it up.

Happy Birthday Sweet Shelly

Shelly... you are the sweetest gentlest person ever. I am so thankful that you were born and I'm so thankful for your blog. You have such a kind gentle spirit, and I admire you very much. Sorry I was not able to stay longer at your b-day extravaganza tonite. I hope you felt loved and appreciated, because you are. Now go buy yourself something preety.

OG. You are an incredibly hard working person of integrity. Thanks for giving me hope that respectable people committed to doing things humbly and well, do exist, they are not ghosts.

This is the I've-had-it-with-griping gripe. I'm already aware of the hypocrisy of this, no need to point it out.

I've almost had it with cricital, cynical, people who just complain about everything all the time. I really really don't know what to do with all the negative energy I get. Sometimes I spurt it back out at other people, and I hate myself for that. I really feel lately that NOTHING is good enough for anybody. Not the way they play poker, not the way they live their lives, the choices they make, the clothes they wear, the religion they practice, how they practice the religion they've chosen, the color of their skin, the books they read the movies they like, the basketball teams they back. I'm exhausted with it.

I was mainly speaking about people I know and love, and then I go to the supermarket tonite, and I see this bloke YELLING into his speaker cell phone in the matzos ball aisle, "YOU TELL ME THIS IS CUSTOMER SERVICE? THIS ISN'T CUSTOMER SERVICE!! BLAH BLAH YAH YAH WAH WAH.. for like what seemed like several minutes. I DEMAND CUSTOMER SERVICE. Where do we get off?

I could hear the guy three aisles away, everyone was sorta looking at him out of the corner of their eye. I (yes me, the timid one) almost walked up to him and said to him. "Excuse me sir, I am currently trying to decide which of these brands of cereals has the most fiber in it for my hard earned dollar, while simultaneously trying to dodge this other gentleman who seems to be tailing me through the store like a stalker. As you can see, I need some real focus here, can you maybe call your party back later?"

(Aside, yes I know how frustrating customer service departments can be and that
poor guy was probably waiting on the phone an hour, maybe two, heck i'll give
him three, and had a legitimate complaint and he wasn't about to hang up the phone and call back later....It was more the tone...Anyway)

The negativity. I used to care so much what people thought, but now I just think that no matter what you do, people will think what they want to think, and behind closed doors they will rail you no matter what. I don't know how to deal with this truth. I'm very upset by it. Is there no hope for anything? It is so easy. So very very easy to make your candle burn brighter by blowing out someone elses. I know. I do it all the time. I really want to change this about myself. Nothing is that bad. It's much easier to pick apart someone elses effort than to give your own.

I'm at this time in my life when I've just had it. Some people are really really annoying. I want to spin it for God and tell myself that he is using these people to show me the ugliness in my heart and to grow me through it. But I'm just tired of the bitching. I'm tired of listening to it. I'm tired of taking it all so personally. I'm tired of doing it, because everyone does it and there are no answers to most of it. I'm tired of everything being so wrong. I just want to get away from it, I think It's why I'm trying to talk here about things that make me happy. There is too much good to be appreciated to focus on the bad.

Joy is a choice. Someone please make it with me. If you see me in the next week or so, please tell me a happy story. Please make me laugh. Tell me how great your Easter was, how good God has been to you. I'm all for listening and for being an ear for what's really bothering you, but don't bend it that way if you are indulging in confessing the sins of others to me. Start with yours, then we may get somewhere.

I'm drowning in criticism here.

I feel like just a little girl, trying to squeeze drops of good, inspiring, hopeful things out of the rinds of the fruit that has been long gone.

Why are there so many songs about Rainbows?*

Is there anyway... anyway at all you can listen to Kermit signing "Rainbow Connection" and not just be elated? It's getting a lot of time on the iPod lately, and it's my favorite song to listen to in the airport. Makes me like people more and not get pissed at them when they are fumbling through security. People wonder why I smile at them, and it's just because...

Someday we'll find it.
The Rainbow Connection.
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

La Di Da Dee....De dah do..


*Ok, I'm calling myself out on this one.. This is the cheesiest post ever.
But I do have a distinct change in demeanor when listening to that song in high stress situations. It's my audio prozac.

Don't you think it's weird that when there is some sweet, sad, song playing and then you just take in normal scenery of life and it becomes poetry. Set to music, a woman pooper scooper-ing can be beautiful. Chariots of Fire in the background, or the, say, the theme to Hoosiers may make you want to cheer for the guy holding up the convenience store. It's magic really.

I think I need real prozac.

Aw...Mo!?

Mona said really sweet things on 3/22. I am humbled, and probably vain, for posting it for the general public.

Mona is this one female person I look up to. Mostly cause shes 6'4". And gorgeous.

Gotta love her. We have had some times.

Lied Again..

Millikin ended up winning the womens tournament. Just so you know... that was the team that knocked WU out of contention with a come from behind win in a questionably officiated game.

Just so you know.

Imagine "Concert Quality"...

Fun times at the good old bowlin alley. Cosmic fun times. Who knew bowling could be so much more fun than regular bowling by adding black lights and thumpin tunes? Or as Jill may say... "Bootie smackin' beats" (If you know her, you can hear her laugh right now, it's the textbook definition of a "giggle")

Overheard:
Lindsey: "Morris, I gotta tell you.. not to be offensive, but there is a huge part of me that wishes I were black..."
Morris: "Yeah?"
Lindsey: "Yeah, I mean you guys are just so much cooler than us."
Morris: "I'm not gonna argue with you."

That conversation also preceeded a super fun nite of cutting up and general jubilance. Man I made it to Friday. It was a rough week. Had to let loose with some dancin' and by watching one of the best displays of bowling I've ever seen, I watched JD Wylie bowl a one million. Well It was more like 10 whole strikes in a row then spared out the last frame. (Or something else, that adds up to an actual bowling score, it's too late to be adding. Two fifty-mumble mumble...something. It was stinkin good, whatever it was)

tangent alert... one time my grandma, an avid bowler, broke her shoulder when she accidentally mistook her REGULAR shoe, for her CUSTOM BOWLING shoe. Unknowingly wearing one bowling shoe and one street shoe, she stands up to approach, and rubber on the street shoe stuck on the lane, and she tripped, ball first and slid down the lane still connected to said ball. She stayed there immobilized until the paramedics came because everyone was afraid to try to move her off the oil-slick lane.

What? Oh.. she's fine.

Willie is just a great story waiting to happen, this time he brings with him a giant bowl of cookie dough... to the bowling alley. He was in charge of dessert at the dinner he had come from, and that is what he brought.. oh my gosh. Lindsay procured plastic spoons for all, and joy was spread. All over our tongues and hearts.

I've never seen people line dance in a bowling alley. I was in heaven.

sup?

Amy is laughing again..

At MXC on spike TV. Who are these crazy Asians? Why are they swinging on spinning mushrooms?
Why didn't I think of this?

We got a bleeder..

Man I got slashed up tonite at Basketball by this chic with nine inch nails. Trying not to drip on the keys. I have cuts everywhere, I didn't even notice until I sat here and started typing. Geez.

Good thing we beat her soundly. Good thing I have my desk stapler to close up the wounds.

Angie, who was my senior captain when I was a freshman, was telling me a hilarious story about her KICKBALL team. Yeah you heard that right. I thought the boys' Dodgeball team was the blastiest from the pastiest. But kickball... Wow that brings back some memories. She said her long arms, and the opponents' disbelief of her long arms, elicited some harshitudes and namecalling, and elicited a league wide e-mail from the kickball administation concerning her position of catcher and courtesies therein.

I ask you, Is there anything funnier than a person winding up to kick a giant red ball on the ground and whiffing?

Maybe Dave today at Sweet Tomatoes yelling to the general populous: "Where the hell are the bacon bits?"

Things I like about my friends, slightly amended.

Deana lives her life with more courage than anyone I know. Has overcome more than most people can even fathom to do in ten lifetimes, let a lone a third of one. She is thoughtful and has forgiven me much. That trumps many things. She knows me in ways no one else does and still likes me. She's taught me about commitment and about loving unconventionally. She sends her aunt flowers on Valentines day and buys three different sets of scrabble. White Trash, Sorta Deluxe, and Ebay third times a charm. All collectors items in my book. Her one downfall, is that she eats A LOT. man she can pack it away. I've seen her eat one, maybe two fourths of a an average buffalo chicken sandwhich, man don't get inbetween her and the plate. You'll be de-bunned and gnawed on and left to the to-go box... (c'mon thats funny).

Liz is so freakin creative and makes absolutely beautiful things with her hands. I like her moxie and how she isn't afraid of conflict. She inspires me to fiercely love people and to be Christ to the absolutely unloveable. To be kind to people and expect nothing in return. She also is great at speaking the truth even when it may not be what you want to hear. "We're basically the same person" ;) I'm going to be her copywriter one day and we are going to shoot commercials in Canada, it's true.

Casey called me today to ask me to visit his friend Adelaide while he was out of town. Adelaide is 86 and can't get out of the house on her own, and has no living relatives. Casey goes and visits her because he likes her. Because she is his friend. Casey takes his vacations and builds houses for people who don't have them. He wants nothing more than to help people. Casey also wants more than anything to know you. He asks questions that make you think about your way of thinking. Casey sleeps in his truck and picks up hitchikers. Give a shout out to Bolton Blue Bonner, the swoonerific bull rider for me.

Nate will sit and talk to you like what you have to say about some obscure topic is the most interesting conversation he's ever had. He is one of the best listeners I've ever met. He has compassion on people. He has a way with words. He's a Dirt Berby....Ah make that a Dirt Berby with a roll case.

Markus will laugh the paint off of a school bus. He would do anything for you if you ask him. He makes you feel like the coolest person ever by leaving you messages that only you find funny. He also gives good gifts. Gives gifts that say "I know you". I know that you will like Bridget the Midget the Queen of the Blues by Ray Stevens burned onto a CD. He also calls you when songs come on at the Lion's Choice, and down loads ridiculous christianese songs from Apologetix. Oh man, don't ask. Heck yes he did. Shoo...

My Brother Dusty is the happiest person I know. He always has a "Wassap Ninz" for me when I call him. And we get along like gangbusters. He's kind to people, he always makes me happy and loved no matter how I'm feeling. He has a kind heart and a nasty golf swing. Dawg. I'm so proud of him. He lived in my freezing cold basement and never complained.

Angela is one of the most amazing people I know. She also has a knack for making things beautiful and for listening and for understanding what sonship is and how to remind you that you are indeed a son of the most high and not a slave. She weaves together word tapestries that bring me to tears and to my knees. She looks at pain and suffering and starving naked, depraved people all day and sees Gods hope in it. She also see guys who look like Ghandi in a bra. And it matters that she shares what she sees.

Amy has a dear sweet heart. I'm glad to have gotten to know her better lately, I am thankful for that. I'm glad she likes pirates and creepy weird dolls. She understands Gilmore addiction and the need for cheesey song. There is ground yet to be explored with Amy, and I think that is so cool. She just quit her job today, and I'm so proud of her. We celebrated with her good friends Ben and Jerry.

Jimmy Ro is a man of integrity. I see him joyful, and thoughtful. They are both blessings.
Jim, continued, is a great encourager, and I forgot to mention that he is such a wanker. Jim has a great sense of humor, and I'm not sure why I didn't notice it before. He always has a great one liner, and never one that has to resort to being crude or putting anyone else down. I highly, highly respect that. And I gotta respect the fact that he shares my love for green tea.

Jane paints me imagination pictures, and has made me love bluegrass and didyoucatchems. She is good to just sit and be quiet with. She's a good memory hunter.

Heather is so disciplined. She makes time for her friends when her schedule is absolutely impossible. Her faith is unshakeable. Her Spades are unbeatable. Her sand volleyball, paired with mine, one day, will be pink bikinis. Yes pink.

Lindsay is a sweet genuine doctor gal who married J.D., a large-brained, funny doctor man. They will have 2 or 4, (depending on who wins the argument) large-brained sweet kids and those kids will solve the energy crisis and be able to spike a volleyball and run like the wind. If they don't get put in jail first for some prank including the use of frogs and tunafish. Lindsay seems like a person who couldn't possibly be as happy as she seems. But truth is, she is. She really is, despite the fact that she married J.D. who lucked out, if you ask me. She lucked out too.

Scott is gone back hooome to Minnesoooota, but still makes me happy when he calls or drops by to play Dr. Mario. He can talk to anyone and make anyone feel like they are the only person in the room. It's a rare, rare thing the way he makes people feel. He is a person that makes me laugh HARD. Like choking hard, almost wet my pants hard. Actually yes, that hard too. He made me spray water across a table once at Sunru by poking me in the ribs. Bum. We are best buds from college who had the same teacher with the same speech impediment that no one else thinks is funny. We have to call each other to laugh and remind ourselves, that yes, that thing we say as a catch phrase is funny, even though no one else ever laughs at it. Keep in in your mind. WUPD. Stick that in your car door! Sec-reen. It's a shame his dad is a clown, no really, an actual clown...

Not running out of friends or good things to say about them... running out of daylight... Ah.. what a great problem to have... To quote Jane the Memory Maker, "I'm one spoiled child of God."

I Heart Willie!

He calls me today to tell me that they are playing "Ahab the Arab" at the Lion's Choice.
He does what he can for the ladies.

Encouraged

I was encouraged tonite.

I had a mini-meltdown after a frustrating day with the parents hunting for houses in the ghetto that is Maryland Heights (today at least...ask me tomorrow). Looked at my list of to do's and hadn't started any of them, forgot to stop by my house on the way to an errand that I needed to do that lost me half an hour, and then had to go to this church function thing; "Let us take some of your time to thankyou for volunteering your time." My attitude was crappy.

I'm worn out. Work is great, but it takes a lot out of me, especially when I travel like I did last week. I'm burnt out and cynical about the state of life and passion in my church and in it's members. All of my firey passionate friends are getting married and settling down, I have nine weddings that I know of this summer and none of them are mine, I'm tired from a service project that had a poor numbers turnout and felt a little bit like a waste of time even though it was fun. My parents are awesome but are a tad insensitive when it comes to touchy matters of being single. So a day with them was less than comforting, and I had a headache.

But..

Went to this thing at the Lodge tonite, and, magically, as soon as I stepped in the door, I felt better. People were smiling at me, not griping about what wasn't happening 'right'. I didn't have to be anything but there. I just walked in, and I didn't have to set up anything, or be responsible for anything, and there were not really any "new" people there. They had food there that I didn't bring. Liz and I switched nametags to be ornery (I KNOW we're CRAZY) I sat with my friends, Stiles and I had a great mini-chat. Sat next to Tom Holley which is always an adventure. Watched some hilarious skits starring the church staff and had some great worship time and took communion. It was so... refreshing? I couldn't believe it. Tom spoke a little, but barely heard him. I don't know. Things have been so uncertain for me lately. I don't know which way is up. Don't know where I'm going to live, or where I'm going to continue to go to services. How my itty bitty breath of life is supposed to best reflect God's glory. It was just great to have my body, my church body, my family, unknowingly lift me up when I needed it so much. Just needed to know that the frustrating service projects and late nites cleaning and bible study preparation matters to them. I know it always matters to God, who sees everything done in secret, but to have some worldly recognition and thankfulness was so... nice. It matters. What we do matters. It does.

Maybe the most encouraging part of the whole nite was the sheer number of volunteers in the room. Tons of people. Not my normal circle of pals, but way beyond that. People I'd never even laid eyes on before, all volunteers, during the course of their week that are busier than mine, people with families, and jobs and stuff, taking their time out to actively love people in a plethora of varied ways. Administration, treasury, youth group, sunday school teachers, worship teams, helps ministers, missionaries, deacons, elders, community group leaders, stevens ministers, manna mommas, set up take down... and on and on and on..

It's what the body of Christ is supposed to look like. With all it's flailing broken, yet justified members. It's why we stick together even when we want to bail. We can't do our jobs alone, or in a vacuum, and we weren't intended to. It's why we bear with one another in love. It's the witness we have to a lonely and cynical, burned out, worn out, overworked, depressed, sad world.

Thankyou Greentree, for being idiots that you are. For being God's idiots. I have been blessed.

MDB

Million Dollar Baby. Went, Saw, Cried.

It makes me wonder about life. I wonder... if I am made from stuff that can live by my favorite Theodore Roosevelt Quote:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Here's to daring.

Can't Blog Under Pressure.

D, I am staring at this screen trying to be profoundly brilliant. And I came up with a recycled Seinfeld joke, a story about the airport and nuthin. A whole lotta nothing. But It is no longer a sad day in mudville and you are the greatest.

Sad Day in Mudville

It's over. There's always next year.

Not sure if I'll ever go to a big game again, and not feel the emotion that I feel. Living in Washed up has been land is fine. It's not a problem. But I do feel for my girls, they played really really well and sort of got homered. But the refs are part of the things we must overcome.

Anywho.

Relief for you, my three loyal readers... no more b-ball.

There's always next year.

Makes for a grand transition time though, from the dismal depression of winter, to the warm sunny promise of sand volleyball and good cheer.

Hey, Free Dummy!!

Today I get home from being at work pretty late, and then visiting with D, Ash, McKinley, Gretel, Bree and her Boyfriend Ben. It was nice to hang with some familiar faces, and a relatively new one. Ben is in management at the Dial factory, which to me is a fascinating job, we talked nerd for awhile, and THEN I found out He and Bree were going to a DOG SHOW in Bellevegas, It was a nite of many suprises indeed. If I only knew....

I hang out there for awhile, sort of itching to see a movie or do something, had a good convo with the girls, but they both had headaches and took drugs to get to bed. So I come home and am sitting around looking at house listings from my realtor and my Roomate Amy comes home.

We sit and catch up for awhile, I've been working quite a bit and running around, so I hadn't had chance to sit and talk, we ramble for awhile about our normal schtick, and then she mischeviously asks me if I've seen "Buddy" yet. I say "What?" She says, "You didn't see 'Buddy' in there?"

I should stop here and say that Amy and I bond over random things. One certain Veggie Tales song comes to mind where "Pirates who don't do anything" make us crack up. We both have a very vast appreciation for all things juvenile. Another favorite song of ours to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it" goes:

There's a monster on my head and it's red, (clap clap)
There's a monster on my head and it's red, (clap clap)
There's a monster on my head and it's really really red,
There's a monster on my head and it's red, (clap clap)

There's a monster on my shoe and it's blue (rinse repeat)
There's a monster on my arm and it's green (you get the idea)

But "highly entertained" are we, by songs and things of this nature. Most people think we are freaks and nod and slowly back out of rooms where we are.

I should also mention here that I, by nature, am the most easily startled person on this green earth. When I don't hear people move around me, and they 'beam' to places they shouldn't be, it messes with me and I flip out. Arms flailing, heart racing, sometimes there is broken skin and tears. I've cut my leg before when the hot fireman guy at my office merely stuck his head over my cube. I have said before that I just want to issue everyone I know a cowbell to wear so that this unfortunate event never happens again. People at the office have made a sport of it. I'm certain it is how I will leave this earth. Death by startling. Amy knows this.

However tonite she attempted something so cunning and evil in it's nature that gained her, if it's possible, even more of my respect... yeah "Buddy" he's sitting in the living room. My eyes get wide, "Who is in the living room?" "Buddy." I walk in to our living room, (which oddly enough I haven't entered in three days) and I see a stark white face staring at me from the darkness, now, I didn't flip out, or wet myself because I was prepped for the worst, but had I meandered in there of my own accord, that would have been curtains for my bladder and my heart. One of those "My Buddy" dolls which is incredibly Chucky- like in nature was starting back at me. As I looked at him, I turn in slow motion to Amy. "What IS that?" "What if I... What in the?" Nothing. Amy is just laughing. Hard. Amy laughing hard is a thing to see because she can't get her breath and it's sort of a rare occurence. But she pulls him out of the chair and I'm just thanking my lucky stars that I didn't find him alone. I may have died. Then she proceed to tell me that she sits Buddy up in the kids chairs at school back to the door to freak out the cleaning crews. I can't deal with this information properly either.

This launches us into a discussion (after we were done laughing) about the dummies in our lives. My aunt Norma used to have this crazy styrofoam head. She would put a red wig on it, and set it on a box about the size of a torso and put a running suit jacked on it. and prop it up at the dining room table back to the window so if an "intruder" were to look in it would. Obviously run scared. Obviously. I mean styrofoam, it's dangerous to the environment, right? Oooo yah scary chloro-flouro-carbons.... But seriously, this styrofoam head/box/wig combo is enough to send a kid my age into therapy. It was creepy.

Amy topped that one. She used to play this game with her mom where she and her brother would hide somewhere and she would try to find them by using only the lights in the house that were turned on. One day they decided to turn it up a notch and they fashioned a person sized dummy out of towels stuffed in scott's overalls, gloves, boots, and a head was made out of one of those plastic pumpkins upside down with a black ski-mask over it. Their mom came in, and saw the light on the stairs found the dummy person and screamed, threw her purse at it, and knocked the head clean off the dummy, which made her scream louder. This was conveniently planned during a time in their lives when they were getting prank phone calls a la Scream. A very small Amy comes out of hiding and says "we got you mommy". Comic relief... indeed, but a known predisposition for elicting terror in loved ones with the use of props taking on human form.

Should have caught that in a proper roomate screen.

"Liz didn't even notice" she says....

Aw...Sheep

I was looking at a house last weekend that some oldsters were selling off to move down to Florida, and in what was obviously the grandsons room there were two things that caught me, one was a painting of a clown. Ugh. *shiver* if anyone out there actually likes clowns, I'd like you to comment on why. I'm thinking their time is up. Like Nick and Jessica.

The second was a picture of Jesus (the Michael-Landon-type-Jesus) playing baseball. It made me laugh at first and reminded me of the similar pic of Jesus playing basketball that my pal Eno had been given by her mom one year for Christmas that she had gotten at a yard sale. (Laughing out loud thinking about it). Eno hung it in her bathroom. I'm not sure why it is so funny to me, I love Jesus. I shouldn't be laughing at pictures of him in peoples bathrooms. I think the reason it is funny is that it's what people want him to be like. Helping little Bobby hold his bat upright, and smiling in his white robes and sandals.

However, I just stumbled across something that makes that image less comic and more sweet. I was preparing for a bible study I was teaching on the "I AM ____" saying of Jesus. As I poked around, I looked up the Hebrew word for "believe" as in Genesis 15:6 where it says "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness" I almost cried reading what I read. The Hebrew root word 'aman' (in an alternate definition, I am admittedly NOT a Hebrew scholar) was as follows: "prop, to prop, to stay, to sustain, to support, to support with the arm, as in to carry a child. Made firm, lasting, nourish, foster father, foster mother or nurse. Support of a door, pillar. To be established. I thought those were such interesting word pictures for the same word used for the act of attaining righteousness. It suggested to me that our faith is as authored by God as it is perfected by him and our act of attaining righteousness through belief is the same word that means trust and to be held in his arms as a child. To lean on him, to trust.

Also a sweet image is that of the shepherd as 'the gate'. In my reading, I came across some notes describing a sheep pen gate. Back then the gates were structures made of stones with thorns across the top to prevent predators from getting into the sheep pen, and the shepherd would lay down in the door at nite, as a protector of the sheep, and would literally function as the door. A very different image to me indeed. As Jesus described himself to the people of the day as being "the gate" and "the way", as it I apply it to his shepherd analogy it melts from this image of a 'barrier' to the Father that you have to have the right code or key to get in, into a loving invitation to relationship with the 'gate' that will just step aside and let you in if you ask. Maybe even ruffle your hair as you walk by smiling up at him.

Indeed our God is sweet, and loving, and wants very much to welcome us into his protection, and to speak kindly to us as a shepherd does with his sheep. If a sheep doesn't recognize the voice of the shepherd, a shepherd would break the sheep's leg and drape it around his neck, and carry the sheep around with him, as to teach the sheep his voice and let its leg heal. It's so beautiful to me, how we think our circumstances are a broken leg, when sometimes they are just a ride with Daddy to get to know him better.

Fine Fine Fine, I lied...

This kinda did become a running commentary on WU basketball. Lucky for you the madness can only last a maximum of three more weeks. Then it will be zip from me for a long time. That's my promise to you. In the meantime I'll tell you more stuff. Hopefully It will be more interesting stuff. Deeper windows into my soul. Where you will find an overstuffed couch and a matching ottoman... and some jam.