It seems the US election was a lot about the candidates being voted. It seems Iraq's election was a lot about being free to vote.

Would I dip my finger for the privilege and at the risk of being marked?


Phil 3:17 Brethren, join in imitating me, and mark those who so live as you have an example in us.

Ever meet a cat that was not deliberate? I respect the chic creatures, even with the mischief they create, because felines pre-meditate. I've existed with one cat or another since I was five years ago and they still teach me new calculations.

A dog is likeable, if not deliberate. I've had a few moments trying to think like one.

We brought home a Golden Retriever named Sadie when the first batch of kids was 4 and 2. Seems her owner left her with a neighbor and then moved away. We liked how mellow she was. I learned a lot from that laid-back canine.
Like how she could sail over the new fence when it suited her, how destructive she could be if we left her alone in the house, how protective she was of our kids, even brave enough to growl at their mother, me.

The summer I was third time with child, I observed how hairy a floor could grow under a Golden. I delivered Sadie to the Pet Shak and ordered her shaved. The groomer was horrified, but didn't dare cross an exhausted exasperated pregnant lady with dog hair stuck to her sweaty lips. Sadie slunk home with a crewcut, but her plume of a tail had been spared, so her self esteem soon soared back.

One of the hardest things I've had to admit was that I could not juggle three kids, a dog, and a move within two weeks of childbirth. When our house sold within days after the infant arrived and we relocated to a fenceless property cross-state a week later, Sadie did not go with us. I found lovely people in Columbus, Ohio, with a lovely little girl named Jessica, who wanted a buddy for their lovely dog. They promised to take Sadie swimming and let her cuddle on the couch. I handed the lovelies her leash, and thus, added my name to the annals of despicable progenitors.

Not having been enlightened to the definition of Insanity, and feeling cocky with a fourth child and another move (Ithaca, NY), under my black belt of experience, I agreed to adopt a pup from my brother, living in Sarguemines, France. Said pup was jetted over the ocean within the confines of my sister-in-law's handbag and then spent a few weeks charming my parents in Indiana. Visiting grandson carried her with him on the plane to NY, and we toted her around Niagara Falls to the oo-la-la's of tourists before taking her home.

In the years we lived with the international rat terrier, she kept us chasing the fluffy French tip of her curly German Spitz tail from border to border of the neighboring golf course and nearby orchard. Better than therapy and a gym, not to mention the foreign language I practiced. The latest move to Atlanta, however, was my waterloo. Francee could shoot out of the door and make it to Alabama in minutes. An afternoon spent on the top of Monteagle, TN, waiting for a tow truck, within sight of the interstate exit we had just passed, clutching Francee's collar and constantly counting the heads of my four children while traffic barrelled by was the peak of adventure I could barely survive.

For her safely and my sanity, Francee rode home with Aunt Mary to live out the remaining decade of her wanderlust life on Maple Lane farm near Cadiz, Indiana. She zipped along the fencerows from sun up to dusk, sometimes cornering a glow-eyed critter in a tree til the moon gave up. And after fourteen years on the run, Francee finally did too.

When Jesse was a toddler, she often said, "I want something." Her dad and I and her grandparents would ask, "What do you want? Something to play, something to eat? A cup of juice to drink? And even more cleverly, "Your blanket, a nap?” Jesse would shake her blonde curls, and repeat after each searching suggestion, "I just want something." It was a game to decipher her childish code and follow her blue eyes around the room, finally spying the pot of gold on Grandma's table. We grownups usually take the candy bowl for granted, but to a child who relies on others for everything, including permission, those colorfully wrapped confections are like glittery gems, golden coins of satisfaction.

There's an interesting discussion on Mike Cope's blog about the growing number of teen girls who undergo surgery to enhance their appearance. It got me to thinking about why we try to improve ourselves.

In the January issue of Prevention magazine, columnist Geneen Roth ponders the meaning of inner hunger. She says, "It’s about missing my own life. It's about having food (both physical and emotional) right there, and not being able to taste it because my attention is somewhere else." Roth surmises, "We spend our lives, each day, in every moment, thinking about what we already did or are going to do, and we completely miss what we are doing." She says this lack of attention leads to a tremendous spiritual hunger that we can't quite name. We get fooled into thinking that it's about something we don't have yet, when it's really something that is unfolding minute by minute, right in front of our eyes. The hunger leads us to go after the next big thing, thinking it will be what fills our hunger. Roth, author of several books on emotional eating, proposes an exercise she calls "Presence" to tune into the here and now and take notice of what you doing and who you are. She claims that "presence enables you to see that this body, your home, the place you've spent years trying to change, is a pretty cool place to be."

If only the cool place was home, then “presence” might be pretty cool.
Even the candy bowl empties out and all that’s left are wadded wrappers.

Paul says "if anyone thinks he (or she) is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself....Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you"... to go under the knife. (my paraphrase) "The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ." Paul assures Christians that "what counts is a new creation." His own body bore the marks of Jesus. (Gal 6:3, 12, 15,17)

Young girls aren’t the only ones who observe that what we are (and this is often interpreted as how we appear) isn't enough. We all lack something. In the process of looking for the essential answer, we may pick and choose pretty lozenges from culture's candy bowl. We may be hypnotized by hype. We may listen to motivating messages that tell us to want more, do more, get more. Increasingly dissatisfied with what we have, we may become what Buddhists describe as "hungry ghosts--beings with stomachs as big as caves and throats as narrow as pins."

Unless my priority is learning who Jesus calls me to be, then the pursuit of self-improvement leaves me gussied up and tuckered out. Fashions come and go and come again; hair color changes whether or not I made the salon appointment; dimples run into wrinkles; padding trades places on the body. While the shiny packaging loses its luster, it’s the robe of righteousness wrapped around God’s daughters that transforms them for eternity. Wearing that robe just kills the appetite for candy.

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35)

Now that’s Something!

As soon as the Christmas wrappings are wrinkled (and in our house that is a faded array of funny papers), the list makers turn our attention to the historic events of the past 365 days. Then we're spun around to face a newer year with resolve, usually heavy laden with weight related guilt. At this point into the first week of January, I have only an inkling of what my resolution is, and if I squint through my fingers, I think I can see it involves gluttony and miserliness.

I have such mixed feelings about the Christmas season. As a child, it was the culminating day when all the family good cheer I could possibly dream of was lavished luxuriously on and around me. Christmas was even better than my birthday, not only because it was a bigger draw for family assembly, but everybody got gifts, followed by Food.
Christmas was the exclamation point in a year of commas and questions. The biggest challenge I faced then was "being good" (ya know, Santa's watchin') and surprisingly, no matter how grievous my transgressions, the big guy never disappointed.

As the responsibilities of adulthood increased, the Christmas holiday has become for me a mountain on the horizon. Every year, I see it looming on the calendar, reminding me of the provisions I must get in order to make the climb. No matter how I whine, neglect, or delegate the preparations for our trip, the mountain doesn't move. Oh, I've set explosives around it to chisel it down to a big hill, but then I have to hike over the blistering gravel of unconventionality.

I'm still unwrapping the great lesson God has been teaching me this year.
A judgmental attitude is an obstacle to communion and a forgiving one is the key to friendly fellowship.

Somewhere along the elevated ridge of Christmas Mountain, I stood for a moment at the Pool of Resentment. Like Jesus’ friend, Martha, I began to grumble about the lack of support on the journey. My back was aching from the load of expectations I was carrying. I could hear the laughter of the others in my party; some were skipping along barefoot, while my own feet, in sensible, steel toed boots for clearing the path, were feeling cramped and uncomfortable.

As I gazed into the shallow pool, I could see the reflected figures of Abel and Cain, Eve's boys. Abel was gently grooming a curly coated lamb, his favorite of the flock, contemplating the sacrifice of its life he would soon offer on the rock altar he had painstakingly built on a rise in the pasture. Cain was pushing away from his latest meal, a bountiful veggie plate. He tossed his leftovers into the compost, and then wrapped uncooked stems, tubers, and flowers into a large dried leaf to lie on the embers of the wood fire where he had already fixed his meal.

When God made the rules of relationship, he knew that when the heart genuinely gives, it truly costs something.

As the days progress to Christmas, the evening I most anticipate is Christmas Eve. It was when my dad and mom gathered us around the tree to receive our gifts. In my own growing up years, our church was ambiguous in its celebration. No word, song, or sign of the season was evident within the building or the assembly, but many of the members still decorated their homes and gathered for gaiety.
For a few weeks in 50's December, I played with a wooden and plaster nativity set instead of my metal dollhouse with its plastic furniture. At the end of the year, I carefully wrapped the figures of Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, angels, shepherds, and miniature livestock, all tucked inside the stable, and it was put away with the Christmas decorations.

Since those years of observing one thing and doing another, I have realized just how much I have tried to accomplish on my own, with or without divine sanction. As I strain to see Jesus in Christmas, however, I grow restless with trying to fit him into a season of secular holiday traditions. We did a new thing when Jesse and I went to a midnight Christmas Eve service a few years ago; we saw people we knew from the community and even some members from our church. Another time, we visited a Taize service in midtown Atlanta. No familiar faces, but it was inspiring to hear the voices of men and women mingled in worship within stained glass and old wood beams while traffic tied up at the mall.

I'm thankful for the simple ways our church has come to celebrate Jesus at Christmas. To gather its family on Christmas Eve lights a candle of new faith in me that reminds me of child-like anticipation. A memorable part of the Campus Christmas Eve is the solo. Lela Elliott's offering in a previous year recalled the rare joy of hearing a songbird in December and her voice lifted me to worship. A few weeks ago, when Leah Manley smiled at us and sang "O, Holy Night,” I wept and I prayed, "Whatever my gift, I want to give it to You."

So, here at the Pool, as I gazed at the altars of two ancient men, I also glimpse my own mother. With an apron around her good clothes, her hair coifed, the faint scent of her perfume in my memory, she stands in her pretty slippers at the kitchen sink, with her hands in sudsy dishwater. Candles are lit in the large dark window in front of her. She has already planned the menu, shopped supplies, prepared food, cleaned house, scrubbed bathrooms, made beds, fed pets, hung Christmas tree lights, wrapped gifts, and greeted visitors. Everything we might need, she has thought to provide. In the glow of the candlelight, I see her smile and I hear her softly singing, "there's within my heart a melody, Jesus whispers sweet and low."

Service is a sacrifice. It costs physical time, emotional and spiritual energy, expectation and preparation, economic resources, and especially, it requires the fee of forgiveness. When I approach the mountains in my life obediently, with a willing heart, prepared for sacrifice, Jesus clasps my hand in communion and whispers to me in fellowship.

A 10-year-old British girl saved 100 other tourists from the Asian tsunami having warned them a giant mass of water was on its way after learning about the phenomenon weeks earlier at school.

"I was on the beach and the water started to go funny," Tilly Smith told the Sun at the weekend from Phuket, Thailand.
"There were bubbles and the tide went out all of a sudden. I recognized what was happening and had a feeling there was going to be a tsunami. I told mummy."
While other holidaymakers stood and stared as the disappearing waters left boats and fish stranded on the sands, Tilly recognized the danger signs because she had done a school project on giant waves caused by underwater earthquakes.
Quick action by Tilly's mother and Thai hotel staff meant Maikhao beach was quickly cleared, just minutes before a huge wave crashed ashore. The beach was one of the few on the Thai island of Phuket where no one was killed.
Her teacher, Andrew Kearney, paid tribute to his quick-thinking student.
"Tilly is a very bright, level-headed girl ... it is an incredible coincidence that our class were learning about this type of tsunami just two weeks before Christmas," he told the newspaper.
Mon Jan 3,12:18 AM ET LONDON (Reuters)

What is it I know or possess that is of life and death importance?
How willing am I to share it with others in time for them to be saved?
Under God's sun, how could there be such a thing as "incredible coincidence"?