Knee Deep

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program…” is a sign that danger is lurking in the upper atmosphere, that conditions are right for uncertainty and instability. As

some weathermen are want to say, “There is a fly in the ointment.” It is tornado season. We rediscover secluded parts of our basement again, watch our lights flicker off, wait by candlelight, and listen.

Yes, by now you know them by name. Our flighty yard guests, Maude and Claude, who come in every year and teach us something new about ducks, but also about how to live and love one another. As some of their habits began to get under my tail feathers, I wondered, was there enough love to go around? Hmmmm…

When the moon and the sun align for peculiar and stunning effects this coming week, we will observe a rare solar eclipse, but in the tiny town of NIbula, Nebraska the dramatic changes that occur in the sky throws an elementary school into a a crazy orbit and creates a most unlikely hero.

The organ resounds, the choir bellows, and my father held the final note way too long at church every Easter Sunday. By contrast, the years my parents invested in piano

lessons for us kids culminated in a significant key note, that held the power to bring down our house and retire our piano to its rightful place in history, and possibly, in heaven.

At its heyday, when a thousand ancient Indians farmed at nearby Angel Mounds, they might have escaped the rising waters of the Ohio every Spring by climbing up the massive, rising hills they built. Or, they may have run up to the top just for the view. For my grandson and I, it was more of a pilgrimage than a hike, as we both crossed over the boundaries of an ancient time, one that brought us closer together.

When my 101-year-old father was called up for jury duty, he had a thing or two to tell the court system, and about the last century in general.  Although the gavel hasn’t sounded yet, and the verdict is still out, his incredible life will most certainly be the closing arguments.

Healthy food choices can be a nightmare. Labels on food

items are long and full of complicated words. Print is small or even in other languages! What are we to eat?  ALAS! We

are not alone in our grocery sojourns! Say hello to Mr. Tally Robot-O-Inventory Guy! While he may be mechanically creepy and artificial, deep down in his gut he loves our personal space.

Want to eat healthy? Just cross your fingers, say an organic prayer and you’ll have taken the first nutritional step towards a new diet and a new, healthier you. There are a lot of great wholesome choices out there, and for at least one of my teenage students anyway, healthier choices in his diet would have begun with picking better finger food.

In the leading us besides still waters, God does not turnaround and lead us out on thin ice. How do we measure God’s goodness and mercy? We can look, as the young shepherd David told us in Psalm 23, to the enduring evidence of God’s stability in still waters and green pastures, and place us on more solid ground.

We tend to grow into the name we are given, even if it is not that flattering. It may sound endearing or cute at first when we are young. It may make us feel like we are more accepted or recognized. In our heart we are experiencing a kind of pressure though, a crushing of our spirit. Soon, we will celebrate a holiday where we become who we were meant to be.