Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Same Genre, Different Specifics


The Same Genre, But Different Specifics

We were swapping stories, as my deacon friend and I often do.  We were talking about “God-incidences.”  A recent author also referred to these occurrences as “God-winks” – where something happens that you just know is a little nod-and-wink from the Father upstairs who truly doesn’t miss a trick.  He told a great story of something that happened recently; I chuckled and then told a similar story with the point:  for him, those kinds of things happen in a reasonable way.  For me, those kinds of things always have a strange, perhaps humorous, twist to them.  I’ll let you decide.

The deacon was speaking with another church staff member in the parking lot.  A young distraught woman came across the tarvia with a bag in her hand.  Deacon went out to meet her, presuming she had some temporal need (ie. food bank access) that he could facilitate.  But when he spoke directly to her and she shared her story of a critically ill family member, he realized that she had come for support that was more spiritual in nature.  She reached into the bag and produced a rosary and simply asked that it be blessed so she could give it to her family member.  Deacon prayed with her asking for consolation for the family member who was suffering as well as the people who were affected by this sad situation.  The young woman expressed her gratitude, “Can I give you a hug?” and both walked away from the interface feeling buoyed-up.

So the ministry interface he had was like this:  broad daylight, visibly observed by another team member, situation was clear on how to proceed and no churchy-rules or regulations were bent or broken in the process.  And then there’s the way that my ministry stuff unfolds:  in the dark, abandoned by any sense of personnel back-up in case the person tries to kill me, and I have to use what little good judgment I have left to decide if/how I can help the person. 

I pulled into the church parking lot at 9pm when it was quite dark, but the autumn air had that warm-yet-crisp feel to it.  I was on my way into the chapel for an hour of prayer.  As I almost always do, I make a visual scan of the area before stepping out of my vehicle.  I see a distraught young woman perhaps in her mid-to-late-twenties clutching a stuffed animal in her arms.  She was looking around as if not knowing what direction to walk.  I stepped out of the car and onto what is now the Stage of God.  Somehow I get the feeling He is watching and orchestrating this to see how I am going to respond. 

“How can I help you?” is really the only question to ask at this point.  She steps toward me, still looking uncertainly behind her across the street toward the rectory where the priest works during the day.  She hesitates and then holds forth the stuffed animal.  I want to say I think it was a dinosaur or a bear of some kind.  “I wanted to see if I can get this blessed for my friend who was just put in the nursing home with only a few weeks to live.” 

I’ve been Catholic all my life.  We typically bring things like rosaries, crucifixes or religious statues or holy pictures to a priest for a special blessing.  The user thereof may then find the object helps them draw closer to God Himself.   

So we’ve got a few irregularities in this current scenario:               #1 no priest present or attainable at this hour (unless you are in the hospital and the priest is called in to give you the final anointing blessing); #2  I’m not ordained clergy to be handing out blessings officially like priests and deacons are; and #3 the item to be blessed is not the norm.  So, I’m thinking, wracking my brain, for what I know about the Scriptures that will justify this break with protocols that I’m about to do.  And the lightbulb over my head pops on and I remember that people brought things like handkerchiefs to St. Paul to bless and then they’d take them home and lay them on the sick person as if the handkerchief represents the presence of the holy person doing the praying.  Those people got healed.  So, this young woman is giving me this stuffed animal that she just picked up at the corner store and is going to bring to the dying woman in the nursing home.  At that point, I started seeing the path forward.  I invited her to step into the church.


I took some holy water and made the sign of the cross on the stuffed animal.  Then I asked her if I could pray with her.  She said yes.  I prayed for healing and consolation in her life, and for the Lord to bring His love to her… then the tears came …. she had given over some of her emotional load and went away feeling a little better.  That’s what I had hoped would happen.

As she walked out the church door and I settled into a time of quiet prayer for my own re-charge, I mused how The Leadership would view me doing this – me, a non-ordained woman just following the leading of the Spirit to help heal His people.  Another Bible passage popped into my mind – where a prophet of God was going in the wrong direction and the donkey he was riding refused to move.  He began to beat his donkey, which then buckled to its knees and spoke to its owner:  “Do not beat me.  I can see the angel of God standing before us blocking this path.”  And I got the message:
If God will use a talking donkey to straighten out a prophet in the Old Testament who was going in the wrong direction, why can’t he use me to help His distraught child find peace?



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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Do You Know the ....


“Do you know the Muffler Man, the Muffler Man, the Muffler Man?  Do you know the Muffler Man that lives on Drury Lane?”  Oh wait, wrong words.  It’s MUFFIN man.  But I want to talk about Muffler Men.  No, not guys that work at the garage.  Muffler Men is the technical term for those tourist trap markers that are scattered throughout the country. 

Ever since my childhood, I have always been fascinated by these tall fiberglass statues that were built for the mere purpose of attention-getting.  I remember the one painted like Uncle Sam near a car dealership. There was a replica of Abraham Lincoln somewhere in New England if I remember correctly.  There is a Paul Bunyan up in the Adirondack mountains.   An Amish giant man is in the heart of Lancaster, PA, as well. There’s not much to do about them other than look at them and wonder whose idea it was to put it there, how long it will last, and why do I just love seeing them. 

Do I have a favorite?  YES.  Lucy the Margate Elephant is my favorite.  On my first journey to find Lucy, my friends and I were leaving our annual beach vacation and driving up the coast to find her.  Occasionally, there’d be a landmark sign indicating the general direction toward finding her.  However, after about 20 minutes of rambling up the shore roads, one of my dearest friends snapped and said:  “IF we don’t FIND THAT ELEPHANT in MINUTES we are just GOING HOME.  I haven’t seen my husband in four days!”  Well, I hadn’t seen my husband in longer than four days …. Because I’m NOT married…. I’ve NEVER seen my husband, so I was happily distracted to ramble around looking for a giant elephant.

I stopped a policeman who was, oh, probably 14 years old as they all seem to be in the beach towns.  I asked him where the elephant was.  He looked at me like he was more concerned with where the Psych Ward of the local hospital was for me.  Heck, I’m used to that look by now.  He isn’t the first; he won’t be the last.  When he drew a blank on Lucy the Elephant, I just asked, “How do we get to Margate?”  “Oh, just go over that bridge.”  He pointed and the bridge was visible up the street (to my great joy).  My friends and I jumped back in our vehicles and headed over the bridge, around a bend and BAM!  There she was:  Lucy in all her glory…. On a lot the size of a postage stamp.



Lucy was built by land developers as one of three elephants in New Jersey to attract attention.  One elephant was in Coney Island; unfortunately it went up in flames.  (This being a mystery to me because I didn’t think metal burned.)  The second elephant was on Cape May.  It was removed due to deterioration.  When the time came to consider Lucy’s fate, someone played the “Historic Landmark” card and saved her from a fate similar to the other two.  She was put on rollers and moved down the street from her original position to a small lot facing the ocean in Margate, New Jersey. 

You’ve heard the expression that someone who is hungry “has a hollow leg.”  Lucy the Elephant has a hollow leg …. With a spiral staircase in it.  Tourists can climb up to the belly area and walk around – it was quite empty when I was checking it out; however at one point it had been a haven for quenching thirst…. if you get my drift.   The bar-in-the-elephant didn’t work out long term so when she moved to her current locale, she became a tourist spot.  And, yes, I PAID to go inside the elephant.  Through her eye, you can look forward and see the ocean off the coast of the Jersey Shore.  Tourists are also able to go up to the top of the elephant and enjoy the view from the beautiful Indian canopy. 

That day, unbeknownst to me, my sneaky friends went into the gift shop and purchased my birthday present a few months early:  a black & white pencil sketch of Lucy the Margate Elephant.  It hangs proudly in my kitchen to this day.

In my online search to find a few pictures of these silent giants, I came across a website called usagiants.com.  (I think I found my soul-mate.  LOL.)  It turns out, the guy even produced a few dvd episodes about the topic.  I am amazed at the plethora of giants there are.  They are all around us in so many communities once you start looking!  I wonder if there are elves somewhere too?
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I dedicate today’s thoughts to all who are free to have the joy of a child in their hearts when they see something fun or silly.  “It is to such as these that the Kingdom belongs.” (said Jesus)

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

The Particulars of Real World Math


The Particulars of Real World Math

Was Algebra class useful for you in the Real World?  Just thought I’d ask.  I’m taking a course in a new kind of mathematics now.  No, it’s not an online course.  It’s more of, well; let’s say an “in-home tutorial.”  Remember when New Math came out?  I remember the phrase but I don’t know the difference between Old Math and New Math.  It’s a detail. 
The course I am taking is called “Dog Math.”  It is closely related to “After-Math.”

The principles of Dog Math are all lived in real-world time.  You can use them daily.  See if you recognize these.

Paper Towels.  The number of paper towels needed for cleaning up a spill on the floor is always multiplied by two.  And then you add yelling.  And you then subtract a dog running away with one of the paper towels (which is why you needed two, so that you wouldn’t be left with zero).  It looks like this:  (Px2)+Y-DRA=0+1

Quantity of Socks in Drawer.  How many socks actually in the drawer, minus 10% for the ones that are mate-less because some are on the back lawn or under a bush or snowbank, divided by two = number of pairs.  It looks like this:  (SID-.10)/2 = pairs.

Dog Fur.  In order to calculate the number of years that dog fur remains in a home after the particular dog is located Elsewhere (dog heaven for most ….) calculate the number of years the dog lived in the home, multiply by number of any dogs still living there.  Then take that figure and multiply it by the number of brooms, vacuum cleaners and dust –busters you have had during the dog years.  Multiply that final figure by 100.  You should end with a number that is higher than one thousand five hundred.  Divide that number by twelve months and you will feel better.  But it is still pretty high.  DF=(DLx#ODs)xBVCDB’sx100= FUR Years/12 months.

Thunder Storm Watch.  To calculate how many dogs it takes to sleep through a thunder storm I recommend this formula:  Begin with you in your bed or on the couch + One dog curled behind your knee +  One dog draped horizontally over your torso + One dog on your head.  (Take the number of dogs available and make sure they are utilized to their own comfort level.)  Now multiply this figure by zero.  Because no one really falls asleep during a thunderstorm, with or without full dog coverage. 

Cat Corollary to Thunder Storm Watch.  When located with appropriate number of dogs on couch, be sure that a cranky cat is lying on the top part of the couch.  When that cat steps in between the dogs, gets snorted in the caboose by one of the dogs and all heck breaks loose, again, the final figure will be Zero Sleep, but you add the Yelling Factor in there for excitement.  


The Bone of Contention Theorem.  The number of special-purchase bones available for dogs in the house can be calculated this way:  Purchase same number of Elk bones as you have dogs in the house.  Minus that figure by quantity of dogs minus one.  That is how many bones will be visible and available, causing dog riots at any given time in the house.  It looks like this:  #B – (#D-1) = number of available bones.  This figure should always calculate to:  one.

Insanity Formula.  This formula is tricky in that it involves time which is impacted by Quantity.  There are many corollaries.  It is always calculated by dogs to ensure Insanity of People is the final outcome.  Apparently, we are more pleasant when we are drooling like the dogs.  Basic formula:  #Dogs > #people in household.  Children also use this principle:  #Kids > #parents in household.  The Boomerang corollary for dogs:  #dogs at home - # puppies sold to new homes + one puppy that boomerang back to the home.  The Boomerang corollary for kids:  #adults at home - # of kids launched into adult life + the kid that returns.  The Commotion corollary for dogs:  #dogs at home x N (noise) x RA (Rambunctious Activity) = WN4O (Wine Night for Owner).


Forgiveness Principle.  How many times a true Dog Lover will forgive their dog.  This is an ancient biblical formula that we find so much easier to apply to dogs than people:  70x7.  Even if it is daily, the Person is only happy to do it.