The day grows short, my friends, but there is a hint, just a hint, of days lengthening ever so slightly, as the semi-annual battle between day and night passes détente and the day begins to regain its strength. In just a little bit – right before 6:30,I think it is – I hope to be watching for the space station as it goes over. What incredible things God allows us to create. I hope your Christmas was as nice as mine; between playing hide and seek with my nieces, sharing a few minutes with John West, and then the entirely unexpected surprise from Heather Coleman and Co., I am smiling over my holiday, and will for sometime to come. I am a little ashamed I haven’t done more for others, but I can guarantee I’ll try to rectify that oversight. Christmas doesn’t end at the end of Dec. 25, any more than Easter ended at the cross. Yes, the Santas and the blinking lights and the trees in most homes will have been bundled and bagged and thrown out by now, but we have a greater responsibility to ensure the true meaning of the holiday is never put away in te attic until a random date on the calendar says so. Take the time, folks, to show some of that spirit this weekend. Hug your momma. Thank your daddy. Talk to your siblings. Listen to your grandparents. Hold your kids so close they squirm. Roll in the grass with your dog. Make faces at a cat. Hug a horse. Gossip with a goose. Panic with a guinea fowl. Tell a goat a joke. Philosophize with a donkey. Crow with a rooster. Scratch a friendly pig. Read to a little kid – there are a lot of really cool things out there you can read together, and you might learn something, too. Do something new and neat together. Fly a kite, track an animal, skip a rock on a pond. Play a game together, by the kid’s rules, and don’t cheat so they can win. Kids hate cheating. We can learn a lot from little kids, if we’ll just listen and forget about being a grownup for a little while. Do something nice for someone, just to be nice. Give a caregiver a break. Hold a door for a stranger. Buy someone’s coffee, or their fuel. Say please and thank you. Be the friend you’d want if you were in someone else’s shoes. Your time’s coming, I promise, and you’ll be happy to have a friend, even one who says nothing but is always there. Read your Bible, and go to church expecting to hear from God. Listen to the preacher. Pray for him and his family. Pray for your community, your neighbors, our state and nation. Pray for those who are in the pew beside you, and those who should be. Pray for those who have lost all hope, that they will be renewed, and that if you’re called on to help them, you’re equipped to do so. Pray for our protectors and defenders. Pray for someone you don’t like, and someone who doesn’t like you. When you run out of people to pray for – ask God how he wants to use you. If you mean it, he’ll provide. Hold hands with the one you love, and never let them forget how you feel. Do something nice for them, for no reason. Say I love you, and say it a lot, then prove it. As I wrote these words, my friends, Rhonda got home to discover our beloved old Mandy had finally passed. Mandy was a good dog; never actually a mother of her own pups, she always mothered the others. The first Thanksgiving after Mother’s passing, Mandy helped draw me out of my sadness by gnawing on my toes – thus her full name, Mandible. She’s been going down from age and cancer for weeks; she feared guns and veterinarians so much, there was no way I was going to end her time here until she was in pain. We knew the time was coming, but I hate the sound of my wife crying. Y’all please lift Rhonda, and lift me as we dig another hole in the white sand of Lagoon tomorrow, and say goodbye to another beloved critter. It’s appropriate that she should be buried here, since her grandmother, Niblet, was an Elwell Ferry dog, and also a wonderful beast. Their time is so brief, yet their impact so deep, and their hole so wide when they leave. My time here is over for another day, folks, so please forgive me as I spring for the door. Rattle that dogbox, and wake up the possums. Watch out for those weasels, and if you need me, holler, and I’ll come hobbling fast as I can. Y’all be good, and howl, howl, howl.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 22:02:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015