Volunteering at the Home Hospice office in Gainesville today. It’s not a challenging job like patient care. I’ve done that too, so I know. It’s basically keeping the office open while the staff is out doing the hard stuff. The most difficult task for me will be staying awake on this slow afternoon. The person who usually sits at this desk, Paula, is on vacation this week so several of us are taking turns manning the desk. Home Hospice is a nonprofit hospice so volunteers are always needed and appreciated. This particular hospice is special to me because they were with me when my mother died and again were a great support as I cared for my husband at home until his death. Hospice is a scary term for many, but for me, I know what a contribution hospice staff and volunteers make to patients and families when terminal illness comes to call. Patients can go on hospice when their doctors agree that they could die within six months. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes patients don’t die within the six months because of the good care the hospice staffs provide. If you have a loved one who doctors agree could be terminal within six months, don’t wait. Take advantage of the wonderful care hospice gives. (Yes, check out the hospices in your area. Get references first. Like any other organization, all hospices aren’t the same.)

My daughter wanted to go on a road trip this weekend. Nothing major, just a day out of the city. So she drove up from Dallas and we got in my RAV4 and headed east on 82 to Sherman and then north on 75. Sunday afternoon was one of those sunny but cool fall days we Texans look forward to after months of 3-digit-summer temperatures. We ended up having lunch at Pelican’s Landing at Cedar Mills Resort on Lake Texoma. We opted for fish and chips outside on the deck. We knew about the place because we had put together a family reunion there several years ago. Not sure the fish and chips were as good as I remember, but watching the boats, especially the sail boats, maneuver back and forth through the lake was healing to the senses. What is it about water and boats! Daughter Tina didn’t want to go back the way we had come so we drove north across the lake into Oklahoma and took back roads west toward Interstate 35. We passed fields with cattle and horses and drove through small towns busy highways had left behind. Road trips can take you away from everyday concerns, but the best part—spending a day with a daughter.

 

Who are you? How would you answer that question? I would probably respond, I’m just an ordinary person, nothing special. I’ll never be famous or rich. And I’ll never do anything extraordinary that I’ll be remembered for. No one will put up a bronze statue with my name on it when I die. Maybe that’s how you feel too. If so, C.S. Lewis says we’re both wrong. Lewis said, “There are no ordinary people. … Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” He said that’s because Christ dwells in us. Hard to comprehend? Yes, when I look at myself with my bad habits and no telling what sins I don’t even recognize in myself yet, I sure don’t feel special. OK, so maybe most of us won’t have bronze statues set up engraved with our names and our mighty deeds, but, as Lewis says we are not ordinary people. We are going to live forever. The ever-living Christ is in us. We are immortals! So, in a time when rudeness and disrespect seem to be the status quo, can we treat one another that way, with joyful love and appreciation for that other human being who’s struggling just as we are? I hope so.

He laughed at me. I was meeting him and his wife and some other friends for dinner at the Cracker Barrel. When I got out of my car he saw I was wearing cowboy boots on the outside of my jeans. These were a pair of roper boots, low heel, round toe, made for rough use. I wear them in bad weather or where I might run into any snakes. It’s pretty casual around here. This is Texas. Boots are not uncommon. A cool front had blown in; it was rainy and I didn’t feel sandals were the best choice of footwear that evening. But why so prominently outside my jeans? (In cool weather I wear boots a lot but always covered by my jeans.) Because I had on straight-leg, skinnier jeans and they wouldn’t go over the boot tops. I just didn’t want to take the time to change when I decided to wear boots. So I was asking for it. Maybe you can see the humor in the situation as he and his wife own a cattle ranch. Here was me, looking like some kind of wannabe cowgirl but with no cows. The ranchers and horse trainers around here don’t wear their boots outside their jeans anyway. At least I haven’t seen any. So I did look pretty funny to him. But I took the joking well. I told him, “They call those wearing the big cowboy hats, but with no cows, all hat and no cattle. Well, I’m all boots and no cattle!”

 

My sister’s birthday was this month. Our birth dates are only 18 months apart, so I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t around. Some might call my sister a bit of a character, because she didn’t pretend to be anything but who she was. She did what she pleased and said what she thought. As one friend said about her: “If you don’t like the apples, don’t shake the tree.” My sister was smart, pretty, athletic and an artist. She was generous above her means. My sister was a fighter. When rheumatoid arthritis struck her down, she didn’t stay down. It was a battle she couldn’t win, but that didn’t keep her from trying. We had plans, my sister and me. We would grow old together. We would place our easels side by side by a lake somewhere and paint beautiful scenery. We would reminisce and tell stories on each other and laugh. I will always miss my sister.

 

Are you a wannabe? I am. I wannabe fluent in Spanish. I wannabe a good golfer. I wannabe 10 pounds lighter. I wanna memorize scripture. I wannabe a better artist. I remember telling a Jewish professor I wanted to learn biblical Hebrew. She answered: “A lot of people want to know Hebrew.” I got the message. Learning another language, losing weight, memorizing anything, driving golf balls, painting in oils, all take time and lots of practice. Life is full of interesting challenges. My problem is prioritizing my challenges. I have too many wannas. Do you have this problem? The writing on my tombstone could read, “She ran out of time.” Some years ago now I wrote down everything I considered important to me. Just took out a piece of paper and started writing. Then I prioritized what I had listed according to importance and figured out how much time I spent on the top 10. It’s an eye-opening process. I think it’s time to do it again.

Softly falling raindrops on the roof. Cooler temperatures. Geese headed south. It’s fall–finally! What a summer we’ve had, especially an August of no rain combined with weeks of 100-plus temperatures. But now a respite before winter sets in. Only subtle changes in the tree leaves but the grasses alongside the roads are seeded out and showing tinges of yellow. I love the changing seasons. Walking around town in my shirt sleeves in the dead of winter was nice when I lived in Southern California, but I missed the seasons. They remind me that life has its seasons as well. (I think there’s a song about that.) If we gave each season 25 years, that would make spring ages 1 to 25 years, summer 25 to 50, fall 50 to 75 and winter 75 to 100. Like the annual seasons, there’s a lot of variation in each of those seasons. I’m not sure where I’m going with this except to say while the earth goes on year after year, season after season, our human life spans don’t. If we’re fortunate we have spring, summer, fall and winter. My dad didn’t make it to fall and a son barely made it to summer. Yet my mother lived well into her winter years, blessed with a long and full life. My point–whatever season we’re in, let’s take time to stop and think about our life. Let’s not let life pass us by. Let’s take time to enjoy and treasure each day God gives us.

Living in the country is great, especially near a small town. I even enjoy Wal-Mart. Now, you can say what you will about the superstore, you’ll meet the friendliest people there. Maybe it’s just rural Texas, but in how many places do you have total strangers begin a conversation with you as if they’ve known you for years. Yesterday, an older couple approached the Wal-Mart pharmacy near where I was shopping. The man had on a cowboy hat, red shirt and jeans held up by suspenders. He turned to me and explained that his wife had eaten something that had disagreed with her, he thought maybe chicken, and needed …. About this time his white-haired wife began using hand signals to warn him to stop giving out so much information to strangers. He laughed and said, “She’s had papers on me for 53 years and I still ain’t broke.” You have to understand this is horse country. By not being “broke,” he was referring to taming horses, not to anything monetary. He went on to tell me he had lived on the Red River all his life. (The Red River separates Oklahoma and Texas.) He said she was a city girl and he was country, and after they got married they moved to the Red River and still lived there. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you more. About this time his wife of 53 years walked off down the aisle–husband and shopping cart in tow.

 

“If it isn’t worth mending, it isn’t worth keeping.” I could hear my maternal grandmother’s words in my ears as I hung up my shirt with the tiny hole under one sleeve. I can wear it once more, I thought. But grandmother won out. In the sewing basket it went. OK, to be clear, I don’t sew anymore, but I still mend if forced to. And, though long gone, my grandmother is still a force. It made me ask myself, what kind of influence am I, not only on my children, but also on my grandchildren. What will they remember that I said or did 30 or 40 or more years from now. It may not be what first comes to mind. My kids already remind me of sayings or deeds I’ve long ago forgotten and am amazed they remember. We are links in a chain. We are made up of family past, family present and family future through our offspring. And, our influence can go well beyond our families. Quoting William Barclay: “It is our terrible responsibility that we leave something of ourselves in the world by leaving something of ourselves in others.” Yikes! I’m praying I’m a worthy link in that chain!

One day while trying to keep my mind focused on praying and not how bad the yard needed mowing and whether or not I should renovate the kitchen, it came to me again how shallow I can be. I have a hard time keeping my mind off day-to-day concerns even when I’ve set aside a special time just to be with my Lord. As I pray I insist to God that I love him. I know I should love him. After all, he loves me unconditionally and blesses me with so much more than I can ever deserve. I want to be committed to this relationship I have with him, so I pray. The problem—I cannot within myself come up with the perfect prayer or even the perfect love I want to have for God, no matter how hard I try to conjure it up. But wait a minute. What am I doing? It came to me that when I worry about my prayer life what I’m really doing is trying to please myself. Have I measured up to my standards in prayer. Have I forgotten it is God who I want to please, not myself. Again, I have to go to Jesus and hold up his perfect love for the Father as my own. He will cover what I lack. Just as I am touched when I hear a child pray, with all my prayer deficiencies, I’m pretty sure God’s quite pleased with me.