By: Jefferson Weaver
Finally, my friends, it feels like winter, if not exactly Christmas.
As many of us bid farewell to another week of work, wonder and woe, I do hope you remember to take care of those who can’t handle the cold tonight. It doesn’t take much to check on someone you know has less-adequate heat and ask if they’re okay.
This has been a week of celebration and sadness again – more reasons to celebrate, thankfully, but sadness as once again we lost law officers and soldiers in the line of duty. I wish we could make the madness stop, but it’s like a big machine with lots of spinning wheels and gears, with no one willing to step up, turn it off, and tighten what’s loose. All we can do is keep on praying, and keep on trying.
On a much lighter note, however – I hope you’ll take the time to do a few things to make your weekend worthwhile. Carry them into next week – it’s okay. Nobody will get angry about it.
Hug your mama. Thank your daddy. Listen to your grandparents. Talk to your siblings. Hold your kids so close they wiggle. Someday, they’ll wish you’d done that more often, and so will you.
Roll in the grass with your dog. Make faces at a cat. Crow at a rooster. Hug a horse. Confide in a donkey. Stare down a cow. Scratch a friendly pig. Panic like a guinea fowl. Gossip with a goat. Dance with a goose. Philosophize with a rabbit. Sing to a squirrel. Confuse an owl.
Read to a little kid. Do something new and fun together, like learning to whistle, or flying a kite. Play a game by your kid’s rules, and don’t cheat so they can win. Ask their opinion, and listen. Little kids are wiser than any of us, when you get right down to it.
Watch the sunset, and the sunrise. Wait for the moon, and count the stars in one little corner of the sky. Listen to a river’s song, the wind in the pines, or the melody of a bird. Smell some dirt. Count the veins in an oak leaf, or the facets in a chunk of quartz. Then remember that the same one who made all these amazing, beautiful things made you as well, and wants you to spend eternity with him in a place even more beautiful, even more amazing. He does this out of love for every person who has ever been born, or will be born, and he knows every detail of every second of every life, every deed, good or bad – yet he loves enough to die on a cross for sins he did not commit, for people who might never love him in return. If that ain’t humbling, we need to talk.
Do something nice for someone, for no reason at all. Hold the door. Buy a stranger’s coffee, their meal, their gas or groceries. Ask how someone is doing – but mean it, and listen if they tell you. Be patient with those who you think don’t deserve it. Just be nice. A simple kind word can make all the difference in someone else’s day. .Don’t do these things because you have to, but because you want to.
Go to church, read your Bible every day, and pray. Pray for our country, our leaders, our communities. Lift those who are sad, angry or frightened. Pray for our defenders and our warriors, as well as their families. Pray for those who hate us, and those who don’t care. Pray for those in the bottom of the valley, and those on the hilltop who can offer a hand up. Pray for the person beside you in church, and the one who should be. Pray for someone you don’t like, and someone who doesn’t like you. If you run out of people to pray for – just talk to God. He likes for his children to do that.
Love ferociously. Hold hands in public, because you’re proud of the one you love. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember that it’s all small stuff. Never let there be any doubt about how you feel.
I have more tasks to complete than I can count right now, but for those of the rest of you who are loose, rattle the dogbox, wake up the possums, and let us howl, howl, howl.
Y’all be good.
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