The Hey You Lady

You may be wondering why I am starting my post with "The End". That's because the topic chosen for the week by Topical Blogger bvaliant4him is "The end of my story." For many, talking about the end of their story equates to pondering when and how they might die. It's a common topic of discussion, really. No one knows for sure the hour of his or her final breath, but for many, there is a defining moment when life changed. You became a new person, so to speak, and you vowed never to return to what you used to be. Although the event at "the end of my story" was over 20 years ago, I remember it very clearly. I won't go into detail, except that I felt much like the Eleanor in my previous post - insignificant and invisible.  But what I will share is that the course my life was on could have had some very serious repercussions, had I continued in that dirction. But my course changed. The end of my story ushered in a new beginning in my life. ...

What is it like to live in the absence of love? To go through life without even a glimmer of hope for anything? A life where you do nothing more than exist? More than 40 years ago The Beatles sang of a woman who seems to have fit that profile - Eleanor Rigby. The repercussions of Eleanor's life of intensely cruel loneliness were that no one noticed her. Late in the song we hear the poignant words, "Eleanor Rigby, died in the church and was buried along with her name. Nobody came." Funerals are nearly always sad occasions. A funeral attended by no one but the clergyman and the funeral director has its own distinct sadness about it. Imagine, a memorial service for someone who was so estranged from the world that not a single person's life was impacted. A graveside service for woman who died long before her body ceased to function. Her existence was nothing more than that - Existence. When we think of the forgotten people of the world, we often think of the po...

This week our group's blog topic is "If the world was somehow sucked into a blackhole and entered an alternate universe, what would your ideal vision of that universe be?" To me, any "ideal alternate universe" would be heaven. A s Chris said in a blog post once, "This life here (on earth) is really just the starting point; a training ground for when we get to heaven."  Every now and then I can't help but wonder what heaven will be like ... Here are some random questions on that topic. I'm sure that the answers to many of these questions will be quite serendipitous. Is there an "express lane" for Christians to enter heaven? When we are “clothed in our heavenly dwelling” what will we look like? (Seeds often look nothing like the mature plant ... will our "heavenly dwelling" look anything like our earthly human form?) What will be along the streets of gold? Street vendors? Mansions? Will there be cars? Will the stree...

This week's Topical Blog is on the subject of always learning. To learn is "to gain knowledge or skill from study, instruction or experience." Experience - that's a good one! It's been said that experience is the best teacher. Who hasn't had an experience that he hasn't learned something from? Simple things, such as don't wear shorts going down a metal slide in the heat of summer. That you should put enough postage on the envelope when you mail your bills two days before the due date. That changing the oil in your car is important. That you should be very cautious when asking for "spicy" food at a Chinese food restaurant. That you can't get a sealed bottle of water past security at the airport, unless it is three ounces or less. Beware of the train robbers at Knott's Berry Farm (that's how I met my husband)! Just as effective as learning from our own experience is learning from the experiences of someone else. For example, I lear...

My husband would never say this to my face, but I make a terrible housewife. I run kicking and screaming from anything related to the field of "domestic engineering." I don't like to do housework. As for cooking? You might say that when I cook, it doesn't matter if it comes from a box or not - it's usually Old Testament cuisine. "Burnt Offerings." So much so, that when when we were buying our house ten years ago, our insurance agent would not sell us a homeowner's policy unless we had a fire hydrant in our front yard. (OK, not true. But we really do have a fire hydrant about 30 feet from my kitchen window!) One of my most memorable creative cuisinery attempts was home made soup. As I remember, it was vegetable soup. I was reheating some leftovers, and decided to have a chat with someone on the computer. It wasn't long before my leftover soup burned and became one with the pan. A Burnt offering. A Burnt Soup Offering. Retelling the incident ...