He helped us understand in new ways.

He gave people a new view of patience.

He helped us feel compassion for others.

He made people rethink their priorities.

He helped us realize God’s love for the overlooked.

He reminded people of their frailties.

He cautioned us of our pride and dependence on material things.

He taught people how to love simply and unconditionally.

And now, he has taught us the truth of “ . . . the last shall be first.”

These are some of the words I spoke over a 50 year old man at his funeral recently.  He was diagnosed with Downs Syndrome at birth.  For 50 years, family, friends and caregivers were touched by his life.  Looking back, he lived a valuable life; a significant life to those who knew him.

There is no such thing as an insignificant life.

The Journey to Christmas

Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night, those angels peeled back the sky just like you would tear open a sparkling Christmas present. Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven like water through a broken dam, they began to shout and sing the message that baby Jesus had been born. The world had a Saviour! The angels called it “Good News,” and it was.   Larry Libby

I did my annual Jury Duty Appearance/Dismissal this last week.  I consider it a privilege to do so . . . even though I’ve never been chosen, never been considered . . . never offered a chair in the heady atmosphere of a jury box.

What I’m about to tell you can’t be made up.  I mean, there I was walking across three football fields of parking lot to the Court House.  A book of Saki short stories cradled in one hand and an AM/PM promise of incontinence in a coffee cup in the other.  Along with dozens of other lemmings on our march to “the sea”, we finally wend our way through county government buildings of all shapes and sizes to a block long line pissing out the door of the Jury Entrance.

There I stand, and shuffle, making somewhat marked time toward the armed security guards overseeing the antique x-ray machine and magnetized doorway to the womb of American justice.  I was in a bit of a trance, I guess, when suddenly a diminutive woman of 90 pounds, dripping wet, said with sarcastic glee and ugly hubris to a man sitting on a bench near a large cylinder, “You can’t smoke here.  Put that out!!”  I kid you not.

At this the gentleman in the Pittsburg Steelers jacket replied, “Yes, ma’am, I can.  This is the smoking section.”  I looked closer to the patio on my right and, by golly, he was right.

At this point, the elf, the non-smoker, the belligerent elderly PC madam tippey-toed into a pax-de-deux, worthy of Swan Lake, with an explosion of activity that could only be described as a circus clown swatting away a swarm of Africanized Bees, while spinning in the outer reaches of a Kansas twister. 

Placidity was renewed when she found herself far enough away from the offending aroma and swirling smoke to announce to everyone, “Dirty, filthy habit.  People who smoke are terrorists.”  I told you, you can’t make this up.

I stood there thinking of the many other times I’ve watched non-smokers attempt to make a smoker look like . . . well, a terrorist.  Of those occasions, the tobacco teetotaler made more a fool of themselves than the people they were calling out or seeking to dismiss. 

In the moment, I imagined my two outstretched fingers in a papal blessing of sorts upon the woman, and the words, “Blessings on thee, maiden of morality, may the camels of the Three Wisemen nestle in your bed with head-colds the size of North Dakota.”

Writing makes me a happy camper.  If I couldn’t write, if I didn’t know the joys of reading, if thoughts and words didn’t somehow make their way from paper to me, and through some inexplicable mix, find expression on paper anew, I don’t know what I’d do.

When I don’t write, I’m cranky . . . When I’m cranky, I don’t write.  I know, it’s circular reasoning.

I’ve been cranky lately and I’m not going to list the litany of illogical outlooks contributing to my malaise.

There have been some absolutely interesting events lately that should have requested a post much more hastily than they have.  Here’s a list of a few of them:

• Five Cousins In Nana’s Bake Shop
• The Case of the Father In Absentia
• Stupid California Weathermen
• If We Got Paid For How Well We Handle Change We’d Still Hate Change and We’d Be Penniless
• Pets and Other Inconveniences
• I’m the Grandfather I Never Had
• The Lost Holiday
• Overreacting to a Smoker
• Everything You Have “Nailed Down” Isn’t
• Boner Woods
• Paula Dean and Southern Belles
• I’m Doin’ 70 MPH Officer, But THEY’RE Doin’ 110!
• Stroganoff Supreme

I’m gonna get to writing soon . . . perhaps.  What would you like to hear about first?

The Journey to Christmas

Not everyone had the same Christmas.  Few of us had the one most projected as the “perfect Christmas.”  Therefore, it is our mission to create the kind of Christmas that gives its true meaning to those under our care and to those who need it the most.  Christmas without meaning is like a candy cane without peppermint, like a star without an angel chorus, like a manger without the Child.  Norm Kidd

Ingredients

Morsels For The Journey

Which Christmas is the most vivid to me? It’s always the next Christmas.”     Joanne Woodward (1930- ), American film actress

Bobby Flay’s Mulled Cider Recipe (Courtesy of the Food Network)

• 2 quarts apple cider
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 whole allspice berries
• 2 whole cloves

• 1 orange, thinly sliced

Directions

Place all ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer on the grates of the grill or over a burner. Divide among individual mugs and serve hot

The Journey to Christmas

Christmas has lost its meaning for us because we have lost the spirit of expectancy. We cannot prepare for an observance. We must prepare for an experience.   Handel Brown

Morsels For The Journey

A lot of Thanksgiving Days have been ruined by not carving the turkey in the kitchen.    Ken Hubbard

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.     Erma Bombeck

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.
Edward Sandford Martin

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
E.P. Powell

Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song.
Konrad von Gesner

 

Morsels For The Journey

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.    Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler

I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that soldier.     Harry Truman

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.    JosA Norosky

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned.  When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935

Jack came by my office on Thursday.  If you don’t know who Jack is, make your way down this page several posts to one that’s titled:  “I Know Jack”.

He stopped in right at lunch.  I don’t know what time it was, but it was when I finally had the chance to have lunch.  Instead of taking him into one of our formal rooms, I invited him right into our little kitchen where I had taken the first bite of a chicken salad sandwich.  (Gorgeous makes the salad with her homemade zucchini relish and they are to die for.) 

I chose the kitchen to talk with Jack due to four reasons:  1)  He saw me first and aimed his crutch in my direction  2) I wanted him to feel he was enfranchised, a part of “us” because, simply put, I like him that much  3) I wanted to offer him hospitality with a cup of coffee and a cookie or two 4) To be honest, I can’t imagine meeting Jack in a formal setting. 

We must have talked for 40 minutes or so.  I asked him about his acreage in Lucerne Valley, the twenty acres.  What it was like to choose this barren landscape over acreage near Lake Shasta because it was too cold and damp up North.  He told me how he built from scratch the home in which he and his beloved Beverly spent over 30 years of their marriage.  Why he positioned it as he did.  What it’s like every morning to get up and walk out into a sunrise and smell the aroma of sage, creosote bush and a myriad of other desert plants.  How every season of the year has its own explosion of color to whet your expectations and keep your attention.  He talked about being able to look up onto the San Bernardino National Forest from the side few people see.  To see cloud cover and rain before it ever hits the ground.  To smell it wafting across the desert tableland before it shuffles the droplets in any number of directions before they find his home. 

While I was standing next to him and his RV in our parking lot, I realized Jack was short.  I don’t know why I hadn’t recognized that before; perhaps because he impressed me as a big man by voice, character and countenance.  We talked for another ten minutes or so there next to the van.  I really hated to say goodbye.

Sometimes someone walks across our path and fills us with good.