Labor

I spent the weekend with my folks playing mad golf. Did i say "mad"? I meant... BAD golf. This was the first time I played 18 holes two straight days in a row, and I am falling apart. I had some funky foot thing, my normal left knee pain and my broken heart to deal with. It was good to be around family and around the Lord again.


He has felt far.

My brother (and the aforementioned Lord) got us an eagle on a 441 yard par 4. He drove to the neck of the green and then putted from off the fringe for an 873 dollar skin. The only one in the tournament. Pretty awesome. Because I am on the team I got a sweet cut of that dough. So that was cool... even thought all I did to earn it was show Dusty how NOT to putt it. Heh.

Taylorville, Illinois is the town where I was born and raised. We went by our old houses and old schools. It's a lovely farm town with lovely people who, suprisingly, are dance/karaoke machines... they danced all night after the golf tournament. I didn't know this about the townspeople because we left there when I was only nine, but my folks said they know how to party. It was a joyous time, even though I was pouting I ended up dancing and having a good time.

There joy amidst the similar sorrows that any tight knit community has, sorrows like the scorned ex-wife, who is anorexic, high, and aging beyond her years from some hard life. There is her brother (the one MY brother mentioned, "who peed himself two years ago"...) who wore an air-brushed button-down AC/DC collared shirt and ended up passing out in a golf cart, I think, for the remainder of the night. But there were no fights and I was amazed that the certain feuds hadn't torn up the community over the years, that they could still all come together and hang out and get along and have joy.

I think karaoke almost cannot be fun unless the patriarchs get involved. This dude got up and did Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone. " It was awesome, complete with backup line of about six macho men doing do-wop moves in sync, in golf hats and sun glasses and the whole bit. Have you ever seen this happen between fathers and their college aged sons?

How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Bob, it feels pretty great to have finally been honest with myself. Weight has lifted.

Farmland is really beautiful. There is nothing particularly exciting or hip about cornfields, I suppose, but I grew up around them, so they were really nostalgic and calming.

I think if you really want to, you can find Gods hand anywhere in creation, and I love that he does that.

I also love my brother and my parents to pieces. They are aweseome.

Surgery in ten days. It can't get here fast enough.

2 Corinthians 4. Blessed me today.

Bless you, Friends.