Tuesday's Thought (July16th)

Tuesday's Thought:

"That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love."
(William Wordsworth, poet)

Sooner Rather Than Later

Saturday, I went to a writer's seminar down in Denver. It's about a 65 mile trip back to Estes.
I had to go through Boulder, which has pretty heavy traffic.
I was tired and annoyed by traffic lights and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.
But I needed gas pretty soon.

I could have stopped at the Conoco on the main drag.
But it would be so much easier to get gas once I got into Estes.
I didn't feel like getting out of my car.
And I was tired.
And the gas is cheaper up the hill.

The way up highway 36 was clogged with slow-moving RVs and I gritted my teeth at the 35 mile per hour pace.

Once I reached Estes I noticed that traffic was especially heavy. I thought, it must be the rodeo that's brought extra out-of-towners and tourists. It's crowded enough during the summer months because of all the tourists coming to visit Rocky Mountain National Park.
 I proceeded to the gas station on Highway 34 and filled up.

But getting out of the gas station proved impossible.
Drivers coming west on 34 were so anxious to get through the intersection of 34 and 36 that they pulled up bumper to bumper and blocked all the business entrances.

Getting over three lanes so I could turn toward home was going to be impossible.

I glanced to the east. An unending stream of cars extended beyond view.
Maybe I could back up and take another route.
Nope. Three cars had pulled up behind me.
They were probably hoping I'd pull out and just shove my way into the thick of cars.
But when traffic is backed up the way it was that evening, you don't mess with peoples' good will.
It's in short supply.

I felt my blood pressure rise. My stomach knotted. My breathing turned shallow.
I tried to calm myself, but the primitive part of my brain was screaming, "You're trapped!"
A free spot opened in the right turn only lane.
I took it. Better to be on the road even if it's not the right road.

I drove way up the hill, beyond the Stanley Hotel, made a legal u-turn and got myself in the right direction.
Getting home should have taken me four minutes.  It took over twenty.

Okay, so it wasn't the worst crisis a body can face.
But all of this could have been avoided if I'd simply gotten my gas down the hill in Boulder.

I guess the moral of my story would be this: since you don't know what's up ahead, you may as well take care of essential business now, when it's do-able.

The Word of God seems to agree with this moral:
"Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." (Ecc. 10:6 NIV Bible)

They Keep Coming Back

Darn these weeds.
I hate 'em.
We've got big, furry weeds and thistles. Round-up spray takes care of them.

But then there's the dreaded "white weed."
That's not its real name; we just call it by its appearance.
I've been told it's a noxious weed and needs to be removed so it doesn't take over.

These "white" weeds emerge from the ground as a single seemingly innocuous stem.
But if you don't pull them out then, more stems sprout.
Eventually the weed takes on a kind of bowl like shape and grows wider and taller.

Then, as if to mock me, this ugly, prolific weed sports a couple of pretty white flowers at the very top.
You have to reach down and grasp it at the very bottom, then pull straight up.
If you don't do that, the stems will break and the root will remain to regrow more stems.
Not only that, but if you don't wear garden gloves, the weed leaves tiny stickers in your hands and forearms.
Awful!

I've tried the easy solution: dumping poison on them, but it only burns the stems. The weeds are untouched.
No, the only thing for it is to pull them.
Backbreaking labor.
And another thing about these "white" weeds: they like to grow right up inside the foliage of some nice welcome plant. Those sneaky infiltrators!

I've been tempted to bulldoze the entire yard just to rid us of the white weeds.
But I'd sure hate to lose all the other wonderful flowers and shrubs.

What a great illustration for us as Believers. We need to root out any sort of evil the moment it emerges. Otherwise it grows and spreads and causes us no end of trouble.
And don't you just hate that?

The Apostle Paul warns us: "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." (Ephesians 4: 31, 32 NIV Bible)

Wednesday's Word (July 10th) for the Week

Wednesday's Word:

Wangle, verb
Pronounced wang-l
Definition:  to obtain by scheming.

What a great word. Did you already know it? Can you use it in a sentence?

Last week's word was vacuous.

"The girl always sat in the back row of class wearing her familiar vacuous expression."

July 9: Tuesday's Thought

Tuesday's Thought:
"You can't test courage cautiously."
Annie Dillard, writer

Note: If you'd like to grow your vocabulary gradually, try checking out my Wednesday blog: Word for the Week. Each week I present another useful word to help make your prose more effective.

Don't Get Skunked

When we lived in Paradise, California, a skunk used our backyard as his private highway.
I believe he lived under a large shed which still sat on the vacant lot next door.
Skunk had his nightly routine down.
First he scratched for grubs around the shed.
Then he moved to the grassy area right outside the master bedroom.
Since it's warm in Paradise in the summer, we kept the windows open at night.
I could hear his nightly forays outside our bedroom.
His next activity was checking out the bunnys' food that fell from their hutch. This was on the opposite side of our backyard.
Sometimes Skunk got his schedule a little mixed up and he'd cross our backyard an hour early.
Which meant that he'd be in our yard when it was time for our dogs to go outside for their nighttime potty.
One particularly warm night we had all the windows in the house open.
Daughter Kiri opened the kitchen door and let Dudley and Sprite run outside.
She left the door open since they usually did their business quickly, then ran back inside.
On this occasion, they tragically intersected with Skunk, who automatically let 'em have it with both barrels.
Dudley and Sprite, frantic to escape the noxious spray, raced back inside.
Now I know we've all smelled skunk odor as we drive down some local road.
That's bad enough.
But have you ever smelled skunk fumes close up?
Holy Cow! It's unbelievably repulsive.
Kiri ran into her bathroom to retch.
And I, fighting the same urge, screamed for my husband to grab the dogs. The spray had coated their fur and they were running around the house trying to get away from the smell by rubbing against our furniture.
If the neighbors had overheard us, I'm sure they would have called 911. We sounded like we were dying.
We wiped the dogs' faces, then put them back outside. There was nothing more that could be done for them until morning when I could buy some odor remover.
We directed fans toward the windows, then hid in our bedrooms with doors shut for the rest of the night.
It took several days for the dogs and our house to return to normalcy.
I went to our local pet supply and bought several bottles of the enzyme cleaner that helps remove skunk odor from fur. I chuckled as I set them on the counter. "Boy, I'll bet our dogs have learned their lesson about skunks."
The store owner shook his head. "Not a chance. Dogs never learn that lesson. They'll go after a skunk again and again and get skunked every time."

A few months later Skunk met his doom when he decided to take another route through the neighbors yard just behind us. Their big black dog dispatched him discreetly and with amazing skill. We never smelled Skunk during that deadly attack.

Still, I remembered what the pet store owner said: "they never learn."
Gosh, I hope I learn my lessons better than my dogs.
I hope I don't keep repeating some stupid act over and over expecting a different result.
By the way, isn't that the definition of madness?

Do you ever notice yourself doing or saying something habitually that always ends in family strife?
We all have patterns of behavior, both good and bad.
Perhaps some of them need amending.
So you don't get skunked.

Here's a rather graphic proverb:
"As a dog return to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly." (Proverbs 26: 11 NIV Bible)

Dependence Day

I love my country.
Founded on the principles of liberty, equality, the rights of man under an eternal, unchanging God.
Today we celebrate our independence from the tyrannical government of 18th century Britain.
We love the word independence.
Free, free at last.

We love to say "it's a free country."
As children we say to our older brother or sister, "You're not the boss of me!"
As teens we say to our parents,"I want to do what I want to do."

As adults we chafe under laws or regulations that prevent us from driving as fast as we want to, or parking where prohibited, or wearing shoes and shirt, or playing our music as loud as we want.
We want independence.

We think of independence as a good thing...always.

Surely, independence from a tyrannical government is a good thing.
And I thank God that brave men and women risked their lives to ensure our freedom.

But is independence always a good thing?
How about our independence from God?
Many morally blind people in our country are celebrating this.
And work through our government to force this independence on the rest of us.

Apart from God, we are, at best, morally feeble.
And always supremely selfish and bent only on our own interests.
It is only when we submit to the Lord and invite Him to fill us with His Spirit that we possess His power to love as He loves, to care and invest ourselves for others, to forgive, to govern ourselves wisely.

It is not a good thing to be independent of God.
Today, as we celebrate our country's independence,
let us also celebrate with even greater joy, our DEPENDENCE on our indescribably wonderful Lord God.

Jesus said:
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5 NIV Bible)