The Most Beautiful Book In The World

[Written yesterday March 27 and should have been posted here yesterday, but had some issues ...]

So tonight our daughter Sarah has her first communion class! It starts at six thirty tonight local time, and essentially it's where the kids learn more about the bread and wine representing the body and blood of Jesus and what THAT means for us. And they even get to make the loaf of bread we're using at Sunday's Easter services – we'll have three at Bethany, a sunrise service at six thirty in the morning (so no partying Saturday, darn it) and morning services at eight and eleven in the morning. Two other girls I know of – one second grader and one fourth grader – will be in the class tonight, and in essence the decision to enroll our kids is made when they are asking why we have the bread and wine (or grape juice for those who prefer) every Sunday.

In the church where I grew up, we only had “The Lord's Supper” the first Sunday of each month, bread and NEVER wine, grape juice all around. But I digress. Don't tell anybody, but when Sarah and Jeffrey were younger during communion when we got back to our pew in church we'd slip them some bread. Is this why Jeffrey's not asking the deeper questions yet (my dearest and her family tend to forget Sarah was just as rambunctious and into things sixteen months before; the kids are sixteen months four days apart), just more concerned during Sunday morning worship about “when do we eat”?

Don't judge – oh, and in light of the meaning certain advocates throw back in Christians' faces, when Jesus is saying “judge not” starting with Matthew chapter seven “judge” is closer to our sense of “condemn”; I'm at a crosswalk and I judge whether it's safe to cross the street – him or her or anybody on that. And speaking of Jeffrey, I just got a text from Martha saying that Jeffrey got picked up at school due to his chills and is home with Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Robert and our niece Josceline who's also sick.

When Jeffrey's not running around on all eight cylinders – just heard from Sharon that he is trying to get to sleep – it's a sign he's sick, so please pray for him. Now on to today's title; I know it at first sounds a little vain, but this collection of eight stories of strong (we're talking character, not physically) women translated from the French author Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (ISBN 9781933372747) is very engaging and surprising with their twists at the end.

What a difference a day, in some cases many decades ago, makes. Then I've got Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese's Signing Their Rights Away (ISBN 9781594745201) about the 39 signers of the United States Constitution, and some of what you learn about them is amazing. One signer, George Read of Delaware, signed the Constitution twice. Rhode Island didn't send anybody to the Convention, so the signers come from twelve states.

And this is where political libertarians, majuscule and miniscule (look it up), sound like they'd like to part ways with the United States. The Declaration of Independence, no problem; it's when we get to that pesky government that some think you're insane for supporting it. But again I digress. This morning when Martha and I woke up at about the same time (for Martha agreed to go in early today and tomorrow for a coworker who's got a lot of personal leave time to use up) I was doing my twenty-minute BURST workout – which I had almost talked myself out of, but I'm glad I did it, and gladder I suppose that I don't need to do a BURST workout again until Saturday – and Martha leaped for joy at the number she saw on the bathroom scale!

She hasn't lost more than three inches around her waist and arms yet, but in the seven and a half weeks she's been using the Shaklee 180 Turnaround Kit she has lost twenty-one pounds, reaching a weight she hasn't seen since high school in the mid 1990s! Quite naturally, this has got my Martha Jean pumped. As for me, I'd like to develop a little more muscle tone, but if you knew me just last year you'd already notice the difference – I'm down from 225 the end of last March to, as of this morning, 187.4, MY lowest weight since, well, I began married life at least! And I've lost five inches at my waist (don't know about the arms, I haven't measured them, but I know I have); as one person commented, I've gotten tiny. Never heard that before, but I'll go with it.

Have a beautiful and blessed day, David