E Day

Ah sure and it's a beautiful day! Ella is three today, and the whole country took off to celebrate! It does me heart good to know they've still some sense. Happy birthday darlin, and many, many more, as innocent and happy as you are now.

This bud's for you!

I was thinking.............some of us spend a lot of time looking for signs. I don't mean "stop" or "yield", I mean signs that He is real. You know who I'm talking about. The big Guy,the Boss, the Supreme Being........God. The intelligent designer. The one who lit the fuse at the "big bang". Some inert piece of matter didn't just appear from nowhere and start it all. It came from somewhere, and that somewhere had to be something, but some dumb thing doesn't start anything. I had a really dumb Volkswagen once, and it NEVER STARTED itself. I had to insert and turn the key(and some times give it a good kick). Some big made the bang. Some big intelligent someone. You can go on and on with all the theories at your disposal or anyone's little bag of theories, and the truth is the truth, someone lit the fuse. I knew an atheist who told me there was no God. I told him I couldn't talk to him any longer because he didn't exist. "whattayuh mean?!" he said. I told him if I said there were no spiders in a corner of the room, I would have a complete knowledge of that corner, a finite knowledge. But to say there are no spiders period, I would have to have complete knowledge of everywhere; an infinite knowledge. To say there is no God is to have an infinite, "God like"knowledge(omniscience),and since He doesn't exist, I just couldn't continue talking to the man. As my nephew Joey would say"he told me I was number one", and went back to his business(which occupied a very finite corner of the office). Like I said; someone lit the fuse. I used to be a real fat head; looking for big signs; show me some love! Love left; and Love came in. I don't look for billboards anymore(they're outlawed in Maine); just those tiny little signs along the road, the ones you gotta pay attention to see. Waking up alive; black flies( that's right! they could be bigger!); my sons; my daughters-in-law; blueberries, and a million other graces that fall like snowflakes all around me every day, and snowflakes yet to come. I get a big bang out of people who tell me there's no God. I'm not an "accident", and those I love are no "accidents". Think about those tiny little signs; the ones you gotta pay attention to see. The next time you're nose deep in a soft vanilla cone with chocolate jimmies, and your taste buds are doin the wave, and some of 'em are huggin those jimmies; you know who you're thanking for taste buds, and that's no accident! Pax tecum!

what the?!!!

soooo.......we're walking through Sam's Club in Augusta; my daughter-in-law, the two wee ones, and meself. The black flies had at me yesterday, so I rode shotgun today. I'm not afraid of black flies, but........I'll get back to them in a minute. There we are in the club, and I see a box labeled "duck tape". We all know it's "duct tape", but this thing was reading "duck tape". I ain't never seen a taped duck! I've seen a few with patches, but that was because it was their time to quit. Black flies! Boy oh boy!! Have you ever had a sneezing fit. I mean a SNEEZING FIT, when you run off about a half dozen in a row, and your arms are flailing, and your head keeps snappin back and forth. A black fly attack can be like that; arms flailin, and screamin, and weeping, crying for your Ma. I saw one so big, it had a crew. There was a teeny weeny little gnat with a white scarf, and goggles, and it was starin right at me.....I know, because it flew the fly right into my left eye; not the lid; the eye! What's the last thing a fly flying gnat sees before it dies? My cornea! I read once that you can't sneeze with your eyes open.......they'll pop right out of your head. I gotta go back outside tomorrow, so if anyone sees me runnin around, arms flailin, head snappin back and forth, crying for me Ma, and my eyeballs rollin down the hill.............it wasn't a sneezing fit.......it's those blasted black flies. I wonder if Reny's sells head nets? Never mind.....gas is your first born a gallon. Maybe I'll get some "duck tape", and tape my eyes in. Pax Tecum!

Life's a beach

I used to think if you were in the state of grace and had toilet paper, you were pretty much set. I'm older now, and a little bit wiser...........you don't need the toilet paper. I used to read a lot........now I read the dictionary(very short stories). I was reading the chapter on B's when I found something interesting. The Oxford American Dictionary defines beach as " the shore between high and low water mark, covered with sand or waterworn pebbles". That got me to thinking about St. Therese of Lisieux. She died when she was twenty four years young. She was a cloistered nun. She was a novice, a rookie. She never did anything earth shattering. She was insignificant, nobody, little. The "little flower" figured it out. I'm never leaving this convent, and I gotta get to Heaven, so what do I do. Bingo!!!! I'll offer up everything to God. Every joy, sorrow, pain, pleasure, insult , and injury. Every act of kindness and sacrifice I will give to Him. This little, insignificant, waterworn pebble, tossed about between those high and low water marks we have all experienced, offered every little grain of sand of her "little life", and formed a small but exquisite beach. The ocean of grace(our Blessed Lord) would at times wash over her, giving her refreshment, and at other times withdraw, leaving her thirsting. She is a canonized saint,yet in the grand scheme of things, she is still tiny.But the universe is found in a grain of sand, is it not? The next time someone tailgates, insults, belittles, or does any one of the hundreds of daily little things that just get your goat. Offer it up. Take those little grains of Grace and start building your beach. Life's a beach; short or long. Awash or thirsting.......the ocean's always there, right beside you. Let's hope; all of us; that when we come to the end of our own little stretch of sand, we can look back and see it shining bright in the Son. pax tecum!