WAKE UP CALL

Yesterday I left Bill at the eyeglasses counter at Costco and went off meandering on my own. I completed the circuit, saw what I wanted to see, and returned to the eyeglasses counter. Bill was not there.

Knowing that he was probably looking for me, I stationed myself in the center of two main intersecting aisles. This always works because I frequently meander off not paying attention to which way he has gone and I need to be "found." And he did find me.

"I thought I saw you before," he said to me, "but I was pretty sure you didn't have on a red top." And, of course, I didn't. Don't have but one red top -- rarely worn. Red is not my color.

"Look," he said, "there she is down there." And he pointed down the way to the woman wearing a red top. She was about ten inches shorter than me, she looked a lot thinner than me, and I am fairly thin right now. She had short hair like me. She had white hair like me. She was a little stoop shouldered, NOT like me. And she was old.

......like me?

I was stunned. Do I really look that old? Guess so. Don't like it very much, but there it is. Barbara is getting old. Getting? Hmmmm. Maybe is. I am sixty nine. I think of eighty as being old -- not sixty nine. My aunt Mary is ninety nine and that is old. Somehow I just don't think of myself as being old. And, guess what? I'm going to continue to not think of myself as being old.

A MIRACLE(?) HAPPENS

Late yesterday afternoon as Bill was about to get into the shower, he discovered that one of his hearing aids was missing. After his shower we drove over to the work site and looked. An impossible situation -- he had been mixing and pouring cement for fence posts so there was no clearly defined area in which to look. To say nothing of the poured and hardening cement and surrounding piles of dirt from the post holes. ARGHH! Hopeless.


He called this morning, about fifteen minutes after he left for the work site. "Guess who has two hearing aids?" he said. He went on to tell me that last night he "dreamed" where the lost hearing aid was, and when he got to the work site, he looked, and there it was. Then he said, "And I already said 'thank you.'"

Ask for what you want;

Believe it will be given;

Let the process happen;

Say 'thank you.'

SUNDAY'S GOSPEL -- August 12

Unless I am reading the lessons as part of the Sunday service, I do not read the lessons ahead, that way they are heard fresh with my current situation in life. Usually I am the acolyte that retrieves the Gospel Book from the Altar and carries it to the Baptismal font and holds it as the priest reads. Sunday it was Luke 12:32-40. The only thing I heard was "Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out..." I immediately thought COACH -- a Coach bag is forever, or so acquaintances tell me. Pick one you like, pay the exorbitant price and Coach will keep it going forever.


This is a sad commentary on what secular knowledge does to our thinking. I do NOT have a Coach bag. If I pay twenty dollars for a purse, it is a lot in my mind. I am frugal, frugal, frugal. In fact we went to Clinton Crossing on Saturday and, for the first time, I walked through the Coach outlet. I was appalled at the prices -- even in the outlet store. If it were "forever" there was nothing for which I would have paid such a price.


Obviously it was still with me on Sunday, these "Coach" prices and promises as I held the Gospel Book and heard the Word.

IMAGES OF BARBARA

We are still working on pictures. However, I do not take a very good picture. I close my eyes, I open my mouth, I look wide eyed and weird; my mouth is open in a gaping, gasping, guffaw; I am sallow and worn and hopeless; I am gesticulating and ranting and ugly. Nothing looks natural -- what is natural? I am a person of many moods, attitudes, and places of being.

I am thinking to take some pictures of my Shih Tzu, Gabriel, and use him as my "marker." He doesn't like to have his picture taken either, however, and photo shoots with him usually result in blurs, a bowed head, or even a back view. We will keep the cameras going and see what we can do. In the meantime we have this, and then there is the serious one that I chose -- mainly because of the color that matches the blog page. Somewhere down the road there will be a picture that seems like the real me. The real me? There are so many. Which one shall I choose? And who IS the real me?

AMERICAN PIE

We have just returned from the Don McLean concert in Stamford. This is the last Alive at Five Concert for the summer. Bill and I had half a CostCo spinach salad each that we ate after we had settled in at Columbus Park.

I took a book and read for a while. Watched as people gathered. Families with young children, the young twenties bunch, teen agers, boomers, and then the sixties crowd, and older even. As time went on the young children became restless and began tossing around their freebie plastic balls and squealing and falling all over one another and their parents and anyone else nearby. I watched one ignored four year old pour Sprite and Heiniken from one can to another and then another and then drink the mix. A group of five or six twenty somethings were sitting around on the grass in a circle smoking gross, fat cigars. YUK!! Young couples, singles, parents became more animated in their conversation. And the decibels increased. Finally, it was a strain to even hear the music -- the beat, yes, but not the lyrics.

Too much noise and too many people. I began to feel a little panicky. And then AMERICAN PIE. This caught the attention of most of the crowd who sang the lyrics and gyrated to the beat. Bill said that we could go. And that was fine with me as long as it didn't take away anything from his enjoyment of the concert. Hey, he said, I listen to this stuff all day long (ITunes) I don't need to stay.

They were singing American Pie as we folded up our chairs, while we struggled our way through the crowd, and all the way down to the car. The walk to the car away from the loudness and the throng of so many bodies was calming. The drive home was further calming. Being home in the quiet is peaceful and wonderful.

THE GREAT SHAMPOO SCAM

The last bottle of shampoo was in the shower when the brand went on sale again at my super market. Same brand, same flavor, BUT -- "30% MORE," in big red letters on a yellow swatch just above the brand name White Rain. Yes, the volume was 30% more. The price was still the same sale price as the previous (30% less) bottle had been. So, what a bargain I got, right?


WRONG! When I opened up the new, "30% more," bottle and tipped the shampoo into my hand, I discovered that the 30% more was obviously -- water. Instead of plopping onto my palm in a nicely mounded glob it went running out between my fingers, onto the shower floor, and down the drain. So now I have to use, you guessed it -- 30% more to get the same lather as I did with the original.


I feel duped. I am a frugal person, very careful with how I spend my money. And I really don't like being cheated or taken advantage of. And, of course, in this instance, there is no recourse. Well, there is an 800 number to call. Perhaps I'll try that tomorrow. I'll let them know that I haven't been fooled, that I've got their number, and that I don't like it. But will I be heard? We like our grievances to be heard. We want the satisfaction of knowing that our concerns are taken seriously. Actually we want reprisal, vengeance, compensation, and apology.


What I really want is to be treated with honesty and integrity. I guess that is just too much to ask for in today's world.

Martha and Mary

It has been over two weeks since the Martha and Mary lesson:

(Luke 10:38-42 "As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."


I am still sitting with it. It has always disturbed me because I have always identified with Martha and the lesson is that Martha is wrong. I really don't like being wrong. This time around I got a one on one lesson from Lois+, our priest, telling me that being with Jesus is the only important thing that we can do. Hmmm... new thought.



Okay. I can deal with a new thought. So I try a different approach. One of the Bible Study approaches is to be IN the story. BE a character in the story. So I am Mary. I am sitting at the feet of Jesus. Jesus is sitting on a chair? a couch? a something, and I am sitting on the floor at his feet. He is talking/teaching to the others who are sitting around -- on chairs, on couches, on something. I am sitting on the floor at his feet.


Martha has just poked her head around the corner from the kitchen to see where I am and why I am not helping. She isn't mad. She is listening to Jesus. She wants to be a good hostess, but she also wants to hear the Good News that Jesus is telling us. She is trying to be the good hostess and the good disciple. Jesus is asking an awful lot of her. I am sitting on the floor at Jesus feet.


I am sitting on the floor at Jesus feet. I am leaning against his legs. I am "touching" him. He is talking to all the others -- the ones sitting on chairs and couches. He does not even acknowledge me -- I am sitting at his feet, on the floor. I am like the invisible person. He doesn't even know that I am there. I feel outside, not part of the group, not important. I am hurting because I want to learn and understand these new teachings but they are directed at others, not me. I am NOT part of this "in" group. I am alone. I should better be with my sister, being the good hostess.

There is no learned lesson here. I will continue to struggle with the story. Maybe the next time around I will be in a better place of understanding.