by Katie Phillips

I smile at the stack of Bob Dylan CDs
you are not holding in the passenger seat.
Storm clouds have gathered. My "Wow" rises
over the harmonica for your benefit,
but you cannot see that one sunlit peak

in the midst of threatening sky. The road turns
wet at the "Welcome to Anaconda" sign,
and I pat my raincoat, loosely folded
where your lap should be. "Anaconda was almost
the state capital," I say, but that's all I know,

and you don't ask for more. You wouldn't mind
my singing and swerving onto the shoulder
for more snapshots over the car door.
And it's only when I get just south of Philipsburg
that your not being here feels like absence.

I want you to see these dark rotting barns,
roadkill of Highway One. It seems only you
could know why my eyes fill the road
with tears again when a flock of swallows
swoops through an open barn door
and rushes out the gaping roof.

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man

- CS Lewis

by Peter Schmitt

If he had been paying more attention
to whatever my mother was saying
from under her hat beneath the umbrella,

or watching more closely over my brother,
off playing somewhere with his shovel and pail,
or me, idly tracing my name in the sand,

if he hadn't had that faraway look,
gazing out to where the freighters crawled along
the horizon – so that when he suddenly

pushed up and off, sand in his wake, visor
taking wing behind him, you could believe,
as he churned toward the glassy water,

that it had just come to him to chuck it all,
this whole idea of family, and make
for those southbound freighters and the islands –

then he might have never seen the arm heaved up,
the lifeguards running just as my father
was lifting the old man out of the surf

and bearing him ashore, the blue receding
from his cramped limbs. And as a crowd closed around
the gasping figure struggling to his knees,

my father turned back to us – sheepishly,
almost, back to the endless vigilance
of husband and of father, which was all

he had ever asked for in the first place.

by Mary Mackey

It's easy to love
through a cold spring
when the poles
of the willows
turn green
pollen falls like
a yellow curtain
and the scent of
Paper Whites
clots
the air

but to love for a lifetime
takes talent

you have to mix yourself
with the strange
beauty of someone
else
wake each morning
for 72,000
mornings in
a row so
breathed and
bound and
tangled
that you can hardly
sort out
your arms
and
legs

you have to
find forgiveness
in everything
even ink stains
and broken
cups

you have to be willing to move through
life
together
the way the long
grasses move
in a field
when you careen
blindly toward
the other
side

there's never going to be anything
straight or predictable
about your path
except the
flattening
and the springing
back

you just go on walking for years
hand in hand
waist deep in the weeds
bent slightly forward
like two question
marks
and all the while it

burns
my dear
it burns beautifully above
you
and goes on
burning
like a relentless
sun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5JaicYuVU

This is a big deal:


You can't really tell from the photo but Annie is sitting up and scooting herself across the floor in a sitting position. This is a big deal because once she gets the hang of this, she won't have to army crawl whenever she is on the floor.

The other reason this matters is it is the first "step" to Annie learning how to raise herself up on her arms and transfer from one spot to another (such as wheelchair to bed etc).

Go Annabelle!

If we live at the same level of affluence as others who have our level of income, we are probably giving away too little

- CS Lewis

"Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet."

- William Shakespeare

When Gorbachev once asked him what was the best thing about New York City, Reagan replied, “California!”

- From Presidential Courage by Michael R. Beschloss

"Don't the Bible say we must love everybody?" "O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many such things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them,--you know, Eva, nobody does."

- Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin

Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.

- Donald Miller from Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.

- George Eliot

In that black trough I remember looking up to the ceiling and addressing what I must have thought was God, the last unchangeable bafflement—“How much more do I take?” A long silent pause, then a voice at normal speaking strength said the one word “More.”

- Reynolds Price in A Whole New Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55s3T7VRQSc

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body

- CS Lewis

Budwiser 9/11 Tribute:

Reynolds Price was a playwright, author and part-time professor at Duke University. At the age of 50 he was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor that ultimately left him wheelchair bound with pain a constant companion. Reynolds recently passed away and it was a rerun of an interview with him on NPR that brought his memoir to my attention. Specifically it was his firm belief in God and faith expressed in the interview without being overly religious or preachy that interested me.

He is (of course) an excellent writer but once I got into the book I realized that he was much farther outside the mainstream than i had expected. Mostly, I think the NPR interview misrepresented him and that realization tempted me to put the book down - not because it wasn't good - but because my expectations were thrown out-of-whack (sort of like when you raise a fork to your mouth expecting chocolate cheesecake but get a mouthful of steak instead - it's not the end of the world - just not what you were expecting).

I continued on with the book and I am SO GLAD I did. As I read the last portion of his memoir in which he reflects on lessons learned, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was reading pure, truthful wisdom. I kept telling myself, "Anyone who has had their life up-ended needs to read this book - as much as they need to read whatever sacred text they ascribe to - including the Bible". Seriously, it felt like reading scripture (but I'll deny it if you tell anyone I said it).

Here is a teaser (although I don't think you won't get the full import of its weight unless you read the whole book):

Have one hard cry, if the tears will come. Then staunch the grief by whatever legal means. Next find your way to be somebody else, the next viable you - a stripped-down whole other clear-eyed person, realistic as a sawed-off shotgun and thankful for air . . . anyone who knew or loved you in your old life will be hard at work in the fierce endeavor to revive your old self, the self they recall with love or respect . . . their care is often a brake on the way you must go.

I gotta say, Pepsi Max has some great ads lined up for tomorrow . . .

A few days back I Twittered (Twittered? Tweeted? Twoted?) Anyway, I mentioned my frustration with people who park their carts in the middle of the shopping aisle. I can't shake the image. There was this late 50's woman, cart parked diagonally in the aisle, staring up through her bifocals at the shelves. "How does someone that age not understand how self-centered it is to block off a whole aisle?" I thought to myself.

Now granted, she was not the only person I encountered with their cart smack in the middle of an aisle on that particular shopping trip but her image is burned on my brain and has come to stand for a new concept: some people just have their carts sideways on certain things. What I mean is; if that woman at her age has not learned to consider others while shopping, she probably never will. Maybe she just doesn't think it's a big deal, maybe she disagrees with the concept, maybe she is incapable of understanding the concept. Whatever the reason, that woman will NEVER understand this particular concern of mine. If I approached her and explained that she should change her behavior, she would probably consider me crazy (and I would find her firmly planted in the center of an aisle next week). So why bother stewing about it?

In fact, I think most (if not all) people have their cart sideways about something in life. It could be religion, politics, money or common courtesy while driving. It could be that when someone else frustrates me about an issue it is because I may have MY cart sideways. Anyway, I have found myself shaking my head more than once in the past week and muttering to myself, "Well, he/she just has their cart sideways on that - best to just brush it off and move on down another aisle . . ." And it has actually helped me "deal" a little better. Just thought I would pass it on.

by Victor W. Pearn

Nomenclature
in the Marine Corps:
hat is a cover,
bathroom is a head,
Drill Instructor is a DI,
and we have become ladies.

Thoughts swirling
in your brain,
you have lived through
a worse nightmare
than you ever
dreamed possible.

You asked for it.
You enlisted.
This is temporary.
This will pass.
What is the best way to survive?
Go through with it. You will make it.

If you can call two hours sleep
a night. That first night
calm, silent, peaceful,
your eyes close, mind slows,
then you hear Gabriel
sounding his trumpet.

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him

- CS Lewis

"How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers."

- Mother Teresa

by Jo McDougall

"They're benign," the radiologist says,
pointing to specks on the x ray
that look like dust motes
stopped cold in their dance.
His words take my spine like flame.
I suddenly love
the radiologist, the nurse, my paper gown,
the vapid print on the dressing room wall.
I pull on my radiant clothes.
I step out into the Hanging Gardens, the Taj Mahal,
the Niagara Falls of the parking lot.

Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again

- CS Lewis