Conversations with Mom

Visiting with Mom, we're doing that regularly to make sure she is eating properly, and carrying on a 'conversation' with her. Now, mind you,the conversations are pretty much one way.
I was telling Mom about one of my Lucy triathalons. We took a slightly different route just to give me some new scenery. We came around a corner and we noticed a CAT sitting in the flower bed.
Lucy gets excited, and starts growling and barking. The cat tenses. Lucy jumps toward the cat, I hit the leash brake and she comes up way short. The cat jumps up and starts to move. Lucy leaps and runs as hard as she can toward the street growling and making threatening noises, away from the cat. If she hadn't hit the end of the leash, she would have been clear across the street. The cat was running as hard as it could in the opposite direction.
Mom was giggling about it. "Not a very brave dog," she says.
Yeah you got to be careful about those tabby cats. They're killers.
It was good to see Mom smile and laugh.
Thank you for that moment, Lord.

"I am", I said. "I am", said I. I am lost and I don’t even know why.

Just finished up a workout and was laying on the pad, demonstrating my best yoga pose – the corpse – with my iPod playing. As I relaxed, listening to the Neil Diamond song – I wondered if Neil intended it as a spiritual song – a quest for peace, for meaning.

As I pondered to consider this, it struck me we are in the same position, personally and nationally. We look for ways to matter in life, to be remembered, to have some significance. We search for it in homes, cars, jobs, the accoutrements of life – and come up empty. Don’t get me wrong – I love my house, wife, family, grandkids, the stuff of life. They make me happy. At the same time, I know they are transitory. These do not give me peace, fulfillment, meaning. We look to the politicians – state and national – to show us the way. But they prove to be as lost as we.

I wish I could say with conviction that in the still, small moments in the quiet of the night, people reflect and come to the conclusion “There must be something more than this.” But we are coaxed by our culture to believe those with the most (or best) stuff wins. With instant gratification, instant access via the internet, instant credit, fifteen minutes of fame, what more could you want?

Blaise Pascal said it better than I, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man, which cannot be filled by anything created by man, but by God, through Jesus Christ.” All of our efforts lead to a sad refrain. We are desperately seeking - we don’t know what - knowing we are alone.

We are not left to our own devices, because Jesus said, “Listen. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and lets me in, I will come in…” We have significance – who else but Christ sacrificed himself for you, me, so we could be with Him? We are loved. We are in His family when we accept Him.

In this life we can buy, sell, lie, cheat and steal, grasp for significance – but without finding Christ – we echo Neil: “’I am’, I said, to no one there. No one cared, not even the chair. Leaving me lonely, still.”

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Wii golf, don't we!

While we were with the grandkids a couple of weeks back, we played with the Wii (weird, there a lot of w’s in that sentence or is it just me?). Mom loves the bowling, I like the bowling and golf. It is humbling to get crushed by a seven year old at golf, and humiliated by a 10 year old at bowling. Okay, how can that kid get a strike while pirouetting, then falling down? And how can Calvin ‘hit’ the golf ball as he launched himself across the room to land on one of the comfy chairs? It just ain’t right. Since when is the proper golf swing overhand? Even my Dad, who launched the bowling ball harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, never did it with a side-arm delivery!

I told Calvin that we could go to the local golf course and putt on the practice green. I let him use my putter (it’s shortened considerably from a normal putter), and I used his Dad’s. I walked, he rode his Razer scooter over to the course, chatting about life and golf, talking about the etiquette needed at the course. For example, if we were loud and running around, they may ask us to leave. He was great!

He whacked the ball (kinda like the Wii) but not quite with the same result. He did get the chance to learn how to putt the ball from the fringe. Also, how the ball doesn’t roll straight across a slope. Balls putted down hill don’t seem to slow down much. Uphill putts do.

After about a half hour of hitting the ball around, he wanted to know the ‘par’ on these holes. I told him each flag was Par Two. He bought it.

There were about seven flags on the undulating green. I suggested we each aim at the same flag, and work our way around the green a couple of times. One time I sunk a long putt, 20-25 feet.
Calvin piped up, “My Dad really has a great putter!”

What? Okay. Yup, his dad has a great putter.

Movie Review: "Edge of Darkeness"

"Edge of Darkness" with Mel Gibson. I went to the movie assuming it was "Payback" repackaged. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, I really liked "Payback." At the core, this is a love story. A single father (don't know what has happened to the mother, it is never revealed) loves his only daughter, and is nearly devestated by her murder, and works to solve it.
He does (this is not a spoiler), but it doesn't go like you would expect. A tense movie, with some interesting twists.
Rating: Full-Price.