The Good Portion

Like every self-respecting girl of my generation, and probably every other kind of girl too, I loved the Brady Bunch. Every Friday evening for five years (decades in little-girl-time) centered around it. Like every other little girl I knew, I wanted to be Marsha, the oh-so-cool and beautiful older sister, or at the very least to be as cute as little Cindy, who everyone adored. Even to be Jan, the relatively plain middle daughter, would be better than the knobby-jointed, crooked-haired, four-eyed, bad-toothed, unpopular child I saw looking back at me from every mirror. Raised an only child (my siblings having grown up and moved away before my earliest memories), I envied those sibling relationships. I wanted cute brothers to fight with but who would secretly really love me, and would defend me when kids picked on me at school. I wanted a family name that would escort me immediately into the attention of every teacher and student who heard it. And, of course, I wished for such parents:...

So, yesterday's post brings us up to about February of this year, three years after the house went into escrow. One thing I alluded to, but did not state outright, was that during this past Christmas season my mom passed away. Things are a bit of a blur surrounding that time and the four or five months that followed, but having a temperament that requires me to be busy when grieving, a lot got done around here in spite of it all. Some of it also came from a different kind of necessity. Mom passed exactly one week before Christmas, and two weeks before the first of the month when her apartment would have to be vacated. We siblings and our grown kids sorted through her belongings - laughing, crying, remembering - then divided them up and carted them off to our various dwellings. This led to a flurry of rearranging to make room for our keepsakes and added further impetus to our plans to "finish" the house. It was a bittersweet time, finding new homes for Mom's treasures,...

Well, this Wednesday marks the third anniversary of my marriage to Paul. When he proposed to me, he promised me, unbidden, three things: that he would provide for me, that he would pursue me, and that I could do whatever I wanted with the house. He's been true to his word on every count. It's been a rich three years. Two months before the wedding, we purchased our home and I moved in with Gina and Tony.  After the honeymoon, Paul moved into the house, and Gina traded him for his primo condo, close to campus. In that condo were about 8000 books. We had no place for them really, since our garage had a dirt floor, so we moved them all into our tiny less than 1100 sq. ft. house. What didn't fit in Gina's former room (with the exception of the kitchen, all our rooms qualify as tiny) was stacked waist high in the front room. Because we run a used-book business we had to have access to them, which meant we literally climbed in, over and around them for over six months - the am...

What amazing power we humans have been given over all creation, to study it, to understand it, to master it, to use it, to help it, to destroy it. But even greater in the eyes of God than this dominion of our planet is our power to help or hurt those beings created in His own image - our fellow humans. God spoke to his people Israel, reminding them of the power He had given them - the authority of gods - warning them of His judgment should they fail to use this power for that which it was intended. God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: "How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, ...

How is it that we do not come into being as individual humans until atoms combine for the formation of our own unique DNA, and yet do not cease to exist as individual souls when our genetic material has long since decomposed into atoms which have long since become a part of the genetic creation that is a new human being?

I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chatted all the way; But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow, And ne’er a word said she; But, oh! The things I learned from her, When sorrow walked with me. -Robert Browning Hamilton Thanks to Simplemann