I passed a young father near the meat counter at HyVee yesterday and observed from the conversation he was having with what I assumed to be his elementary daughter and the elementary classmate she had bumped into unexpectedly, that he was a fun daddy. His eyes were as excited about their impromptu encounter as hers were. I smiled as I walked by. Another 20 minutes later I overheard from the checkout counter behind me the same voices and turned to hear this father explaining to the cashier that his daughter had made "it" and asked him to wear "it" so he was and he didn't care if people thought him crazy. Only then did I see that "it" was a yarn necklace with attached paper pendant colored in crayon by his little girl at school. He explained it was too small to fit anywhere else so he wore it around his forehead. I swooshed a prayer their direction but figured God already has them covered...

breaking character...

A couple weekends ago sitting in the green room during the sermon segment of our services I wasn’t really expecting a conviction to fix itself to my spirit but apparently it has. That particular morning I was absorbed with solitaire on my phone but was still hearing bits and pieces from the pockets of conversation taking place among team members. There was nothing necessarily awful being discussed but nothing I would classify as edification either. The thing is, most of us jump into place, self-included, when “he’s down” and resume where we left off. There have only been a few times when I felt like we spent the “down time” as worshippers; the couple times we shared communion together and the couple times we prayed together. (All of these times memorable.)

They say the hardest part of staying in character for an actor isn’t when they have lines to say, but when they don’t. It’s staying in character while they listen that takes the most discipline. I just wonder if we’re settling for less when we use those 30 minutes the way we typically use them. In the course of a weekend we usually have an hour to invest in our spiritual growth as a team, not that the fellowship we enjoy can't be worship, but I think we could or should consider doing something more with the time we have. Something that would keep us from treating the song set as the only time we’re responsible for.

Ironically they call it corpsing when an actor tries to make another actor break character. It isn’t such a stretch to believe there are spiritual forces trying to get us to do the same thing and by doing so, maybe our worship dies a little. I’ll be the first one to blow it the next time we gather but I am going to try and use my time a little better and I’d like some company. If we’re going to ask the body to raise the bar and step it up a bit, we should all be prepared to do the same, if not more…

And scene.

edward scissorhands...

He's standing in the street critiquing his late afternoon project with the eye of a career artist. A self-commissioned piece he sculptured out of our four-year old lilac tree. I sit on the porch wrapped in a towel- borderline goose bumps as the breeze hits my half-dry suit, and feel a tinge and only a tinge bit guilty that he’s working up a sweat in the front yard. “Now I got something done today” he tells me as he walks to the porch to unplug the shears that have extended his hands over the past couple weekends, and shaped the unruly summer growth of our landscape. That tinge again. I blog and he sweeps the fallout. He fluffs the tree and gives it one last look before he catches me watching. “Now I can go take my shower and relax.”

“So, Edward. Did you have a productive day?”

Hi Mom. What are you doing for lunch?

Are you kidding? Are you kidding?

Well, if you're busy you don't have to. I could just go home.

Are you kidding? There is no way I would pass up a chance to have you all to myself.

(Giggle) Since John's in Macomb, I thought you might like to get lunch.

You thought right baby girl. You thought right.

Sometimes I use seasonal pictures of Shawna to decorate the house. I'm itching to unbox my fall collection, eager to see the ones of her in her first Halloween costume, the one with her SIU sweatshirt and side ponytail, the one in her Baby Gap sweater and the pumpkins...I love my girl. I will however miss the ones currently gracing the kitchen bay window.

There's one of her sitting in a plastic basket in the middle of her kiddie-pool donning sunglasses.
There's one of her sitting on Kevin's lap sharing a buttery cob of corn.

My favorite though is the one I just picked up and stared at for the longest time. Surrounded by a blue frame with stars all around is this tanned, toothless 6-year old holding a red balloon in her arms. She's wearing denim over-all shorts with no shirt and I can almost feel her skin and smell her long, beautiful hair with its natural summer highlights. So cute. So very cute. It was taken the night of my dad's 60th surprise party and seems like another life, another lifetime ago. Makes me sad and happy at the same time. They laugh at me when I tell them I'm obsessed with obituaries. I am. I see these days of ours slipping through my wrinkled fingers and I know I might not even get around to hauling those fall boxes out of the basement. So I took time to stare at the picture and remember when I took it and how much I love all that is my Shawna. Crowder's right: Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. Well, without some say in the matter. So as dad used to say: "Make the most of every day. Maybe you will or you won't. But take it from old Papa G, you'll regret it if you don't..."