HAPPY B-DAY MOM

Fourteen years ago ...

Matthew 18:11-20                                                                        February 5
Martha on her humanities exam                                                   10102.05

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 20

None of us are willed to perish, Jesus says. All of us are called to hold each other accountable, brother to brother, sister to sister, believer to church, all to God. All of us have the capacity to reach the lost sheep for Jesus; we often just don't have -- or at least I don't -- have the will to win them. Personal resentment is just not going to fit in the kingdom of heaven, and its once and future membership will surprise you! Let me be part of that and want others to join in too. Amen.

[The page following had my summary and review of H.G Wells' book The Croquet Player, and my bottom-page prayer requests included Israel's elections, for (God's) guidance, and for (my) Mom and her then-boyfriend J.D. traveling.]

The last two days or so ...

Sarah and Jeffrey are keeping caught up on their reading, praise the Lord! Their school requires them to read at home for twenty minutes a day for at least twenty days a month, and we keep a good stock of books around that they like reading, and they relish their library time too. After work that night I had to pick up Jeffrey at Longfellow where his Cub Scout troop meets two Tuesdays a month, and evidently they were with another Scoutmaster who, after they had all reviewed their Scout Oath and the requirements for their latest badge, had them in groups playing a game where they had to toss tiny balls into marked sections of an egg carton. I didn't find out much more, but Martha and I are concerned about whether Jeffrey is retaining any useful skills from his time there or doing anything more valuable THAN playing with other boys. We're giving him one more year -- this will be Jeffrey's third year in Scouting -- and we need to see some commitment.

Yesterday was Martha's birthday. It was my turn on the paper route, and I couldn't get back to sleep after I'd gotten home (though I have come to make up for that by crashing after I bring the kids to school in the morning); since Martha has to be at work early, the kids usually get up to see her off and that morning while she was in the shower the kids -- who were already downstairs -- got the idea to make her that awesome HAPPY B-DAY MOM with dominoes. They had to cover it with our Tweety blanket and I had to walk Martha by to our bedroom with her eyes shut. She got dressed, she came out, and we presented that to her along with several cards we'd made for her! All of us have pictures taken with the dominoes, and when I knelt for Jeffrey to take mine, Martha, and Sarah's picture next to it my knee popped. Mary left several dolphin-related gifts for her and tomorrow she gets taken out to lunch with her Trinity women coworkers.

Gee, my coworkers don't take ME out to lunch on my birthday, but I digress. This morning more people have seen and are impressed with the haircut Martha gave me Saturday (really, I'm impressed with it too) and the night before I'd met Martha and the kids at church where after choir practice there was a social downstairs for choir members and their families. And man was it yummy; there was this caramel-drizzled truffle dessert laid out in a giant sifter and these homemade baked ham and cheese sandwiches with honey and mustard baked into the bread and non-spicy meatballs to go with spaghetti and meat sauce and fruits and vegetables and drinks -- obviously non-alcoholic, this was at church -- and I brought a second plate to work today for lunch! I figured they would be offended if I didn't take some home ... and today outside there is snow on the ground, yet the roads are clear and it is sunny at sixteen degrees. I'll take that; it's supposed to be warm here through the end of next week!

Ciao! David