Doing the 5K Loop

I have an exercise area set up in the house: Nordic Track, rowing machine, treadmill and a flatscreen TV to distract me during the otherwise boring process of trying to lower my LDL and raise my HDL. However, this afternoon, although the air was chilly, was also beautifully sunny. Going for a walk outdoors seemed like a great idea. The down side of this decision was the concern that I might end up limping home. Occasionally when I walk, something goes amiss before I make the complete circuit, and I hobble home with pain in my left hip and knee. There have even been a couple of times when I have had to call my husband on my cell phone and request taxi service home. At least if I am on the treadmill, I am already home.

My husband has been a distance runner since his teen years. He has several routes through the city all measured out. One of these is a 5K (3+ miles) loop which he does in a counter-clockwise direction, so that there is a steep hill in the first half of the run and a gradual downslope home. I prefer to go clockwise with a gradual uphill in the first half and the steep downslope on the home stretch.

When I left home, he was on the computer, but said he would shortly be going out for a run. I started out with a tissue stuffed up the left sleeve of my sweatshirt (my nose runs in the cold), and my cell phone stuffed up the right sleeve......no pockets.

It really was a glorious afternoon. Daffodils and tulips are in bloom. Trees are beginning to bud. A dog barked ferociously from behind his fence....fortunately, a nice sturdy fence.

I came along just in time to see a grandmother get out of her car and head toward a house where two little heads peeked up over the windowsill in anticipation. She glanced my way, and we exchanged a smile. "I love it...I just love it," she said. I nodded, because we grandmothers know about this feeling. I was glad I had decided to walk outdoors, as I thoroughly enjoyed that shared moment.

In the next block, I noticed a man out mowing his lawn. I recognized him as a professor from the community college, who had known my son when he was a student there. He saw me coming and turned the mower off as I approached. He asked about my son....where he was, what he was doing. I must confess to delighting in any opportunity to "brag" about my son.

In the next block, I saw a runner coming toward me. It isn't unusual to see runners while I am out walking, but I decided to give this one a kiss. He has been my favorite runner for over 40 years. I then spent some time musing about the morning he had surprised me.

Several years ago, I was going through a time of emotional upheaval, and I kept waking up ridiculously early. If I stayed in bed, I would just toss and turn and feel distraught, so I would get up and walk the 5K loop. I often saw early morning runners. My husband has never been a morning person, much less a crack-of-the-dawn runner. He was always in a deep sleep when I left...or so I thought. On one of those mental health walks, I realized a runner was coming from the other direction straight at me. It wasn't until a few seconds before he planted a kiss on me that I recognized him. Every time I think of him overcoming his morning inertia to surprise me, I smile inside.

He, of course, runs a lot faster than I walk, so he beat me home today. About a block from home, I saw the car pull out and head in my direction. He was coming to find me and make sure my leg wasn't bothering me. He said he had projected when I would arrive home based on when he had seen me, and I was behind schedule. My leg was fine, but there had been so much to see and to ponder, that my focus on a pace was non-existent.

When I walk outdoors, my mind travels a lot farther than 5K.

You know you have been married a long time when...

Last evening Bill and I went out for dinner to celebrate his 67th birthday. He was upstairs getting ready to go, when it occurred to me that there was something I wanted to talk to him about. I also needed to use the bathroom, so I thought I would multi-task by using the upstairs bathroom and talking simultaneously.

When I arrived in the upstairs bathroom, I discovered that he was occupying the porcelain throne.

I said, "I was going to talk to you while you got ready, but..."

Guessing what I was about to say, he said, "Oh, you needed to use the toilet too."

Turning to leave, I replied, "I'll just go use the other bathroom."

Then thinking I had come up with a clever line, "Hmmm....maybe we should..."

He burst out in laughter when I was only three words into my punch line.

"Do you know what I was going to say?"

Still laughing, "Yes!"

"Seriously....you knew I was going to say that maybe we should remodel the bathroom and put in adjacent toilets?"

"Yup."

Now that seems to me to be a pretty random comment. So, you know you have been married a long time when your husband laughs at your joke before you have even gotten it out of your mouth.

When we were young, we used to get in the bathtub together and have great discussions in which we pondered our own problems and those of the world.

Now that we are old, we apparently are both picturing ourselves on adjacent toilets working out our own problems and those of the world.

Perhaps this isn't such an off-the-wall idea. When I was a kid, I had friends who lived on farms that still had outhouses. Most of these seemed to have two adjacent holes in the bench seat.

So when some home designer comes up with the notion that having two toilets in the bathroom is simultaneously both innovative and retro, remember you read it here first.

In other words, to borrow the phraseology of a currently popular ad, "I'm an old lady, and adjacent toilets were my idea."

All Men

O you who hear prayer; to you all men will come. Psalm 65:2

All men....

Not only the priest and prophet,

But,

The rich and the poor,

The genius and the slow,

The strong and the weak,

The educated and the ignorant,

The devout and the profane,

The young and the aged,

The urbane and the backward,

The eager and the reticent,

The believer, agnostic and atheist,

From,

Every nation,

Every race,

Every language,

Every extremity of the earth.

Perhaps not today,

Not even tomorrow,

But someday...

By choice,

Or of necessity.

All men.

Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other....before me every knee will bow... Isaiah 45: 22, 23

Spring Cleaning?

A couple of days ago I was standing outside talking to the neighbor. We were near the back corner of her house, when I saw what appeared to be two bumble bees flying together. And, I do mean flying together....as in, one was carrying the other. They were flying around about 8 feet above the ground, when one of them plummeted to the ground near our feet. It was dead, and clearly had been dead for awhile. The other bee flew up to the eaves of the house and disappeared into a crack.

What I am guessing is that the dead bee had expired over the winter, and in an effort to tidy up the household, the other bee removed the corpse. I guess it makes sense that such a thing could happen, but it certainly was surprising to see it.

Of course, now my neighbor needs to consider that there is probably a bees nest in the eaves of the house.

This Life is not the End

It is Good Friday evening, and a song I wrote about 25 years ago just came to my mind.

The Dawn

If I had stood at Calvary, and viewed the darkness there,

Looked up and seen my dying friend, and felt the deep despair,

Of seeing helpless, him on whom, I thought I could depend,

I think I would have cried out, "Oh, God, this is the end."

If I had stood outside the tomb and seen the awful stone,

That sealed in the kindest man that I had ever known,

I might have thought, "He wasn't God, he was only just a friend."

And in my grief, I would have cried, "Oh, God, this is the end."

But a new day was coming. There was sunrise near at hand.

There would be a brand new morning. New life was in the plan,

For Christ conquered death, and rose again, upon an Easter morn.

And just as surely as He lives, we too with see the dawn.

And if today you stand here, so overwhelmed by life,

If you cannot make sense of the confusion and the strife,

Put your faith in Him who conquered death, eternity you'll spend,

In lifting up your praise to Him. This life is not the end.

For a new day is coming. There is sunrise near at hand.

There will be a brand new morning. New life is in the plan.

For Christ conquered death, and rose again, upon an Easter morn.

And just as surely as He lives, we too will see the dawn.

It is hard to imagine the overwhelming grief that Christ's friends must have experienced on Good Friday, but joy was just around the corner. Morning was coming.

And....morning is coming!

I love my house, but....

I love my house....all eleven rooms and four full bathrooms of Victorian charm with 10 foot ceilings on the first floor and 9 foot ceilings on the second floor. I love the two fireplaces, prism glass windows, built in buffet in the dining room, leaded glass doors on the book cabinets, claw foot tubs in two of the bathrooms and hardwood floors.

I love the fact that when we moved in 33 years ago we had all of the plumbing and wiring updated and some areas modernized without losing too much of the home's character. The two bathtubs that aren't old are a tub with jets and one that is extra deep for "steeping."

But...

Two people do not need four bathrooms. It is expensive to heat a house this size with such high ceilings. It is a lot of effort to clean this enormous place. I don't want my husband climbing ladders to change storm windows anymore.

So...

We are going to move into something smaller and more realistic for people who are card-carrying members of the Medicare generation. Our purchase offer on a smaller home has been accepted. Now we just have to figure out how to get rid of the collection of "stuff" that results from not moving in over three decades.

What was he thinking??!

"Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have led a blameless life"....so begins Psalm 26 written by David.

This would be the same David, who as King of Israel, saw a beautiful woman, desired her, called her to the palace, and engaged in sexual relations with her although she was married to a soldier in his army. When she notified him that she was pregnant, he arranged for her husband to be placed on the front lines in battle, and then abandoned by his fellow soldiers, so that he would be killed. I have to assume that Psalm 26 was written prior to this incident, which is certainly not characteristic of a blameless life.

But, even if this was written when David was a poor shepherd boy, what was he thinking? No matter how earnest we are within our own hearts, who among us is blameless? We may have every intention of doing the right thing, but there are just way too many ways to mess up.

I knew this by the time I was seven years old. I clearly remember my frustration with myself. I wanted to be good. I wanted to cooperate with my mother. I knew I should be kind to my younger brother. It was the practical out-working of this that tripped me up on a daily basis. I was told that I needed to invite Jesus into my heart, so I did. Night after night, I would apologize to God for my bad behavior, and ask Jesus to come into my heart. Then I would get up the next day and discover I was still the same rotten little kid.

Finally, I had the opportunity to talk to a Sunday School teacher, who explained to me that inviting Jesus in my heart would not make me perfect. Jesus died for my sins, and they were paid for by His sacrifice, but I was still going to struggle to be good. I just had to keep asking him to help me. An enormous weight lifted off my seven-year-old shoulders on November 2, 1952. I have spent the last 57 + years knowing that my sins were forgiven, but also knowing that living a "blameless" life is exceedingly difficult! Perfection doesn't come in this life-time.

Since that day, I can honestly say that my intentions within my innermost being have always been to do the right thing...the thing that most honors and pleases God. I can also honestly say that I have not always succeeded at that. I am not excusing myself based on personality quirks and human frailty, but it is a fact that we all have such.....some of us have more than others!

So, dear David, what were you thinking when you declared yourself blameless? Did you not understand your own weakness? Did you think you could not be tempted as other men? The fact that you were usually a "good boy" did not mean you always would be. The person who does what is right 99% of the time, still has the other 1% to deal with.

Perhaps it was an older and wiser David who said, "You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you. May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me." (Psalm 69:5-6)