Buncha stuff

Wow I thought I was way behind but I discover that I'm not. No pressing issues for me to fulminate about so just a few thoughts that wandered across my forehead.

One of you readers (I think it was Drew) got me started thinking about a phrase from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you don't know Bonhoeffer google him and learn. You'll be a better person for knowing him. Anyway he wrote about how our faith should infect our entire lives.

Infect. What a great image.

So I was thinking about how that would really work in day to day life. Do we all become monks and nuns? I don't think that's where he was going with it. But I do think this may be in line with it. It's still winter where I am, cold and damp and nasty. I was watching one of the supermarket employees doing what HAS to be the worst job this time of year. Playing grocery cart cowboy. How often do we look out the windshield of our car and see a cart that's been left by someone who can't or more likely simply won't take the time to put it into one of the corrals? So my infection now will show in a new way. I will continue to put my cart away and if there are carts in the area of my car I'll put them away too. Not for thanks or glory or a crown in heaven. Just because I can and I can ease the way of another human being doing it.


I had a death in my extended "family" this week. She had been my summer time "Mom" for several years and a friend of my family since I was in third grade. Her son is one of my best friends in the world and her daughter is as close to a sister as I've ever had. But this past Wednesday she was ready to go. It had been a long illness that had left her bedridden and unable to enjoy life. And enjoying life seemed to be one of Ellen's best things. When I think of Ellen I think of two things one happy one sad. The sad one is I always think of a cigarette. The habit may or may not have killed her but it didn't help in so many ways. The happy one is her laugh. There was nothing small about Ellen's laugh. In fact she lived most of her life large. I haven't seen her in a couple years (she'd come up to my neck of the woods most summers and I'd make sure to see her)and as is too often the case I realize what a dope I'd been by letting "life" (which is mostly stupid and unimportant stuff) get in the way of people. I'm sorry I didn't make the time to spend some time with her. I'll miss her. I believe she's in a better place with her husband Ralph and my Dad and her folks and many other people she loved. Goodbye Ellen.

Peace