Sometimes I think I would have liked to be the Rebekah in the Bible except for, well, the fact that she ended up being sort of deceitful. I would have liked to be her because she had a kind heart or she would not have watered the camels that Abraham's
servant had without being asked. She was willing to leave her home, and she comforted Isaac upon the death of his mother. Those, I think were her good qualities.

Nevertheless, she did have to deal with a man who was the "apple of his father's eye", so to speak, and I would bet it was sort of hard. I mean, Abraham had a hard time dealing with Sarah his wife and waiting for Isaac to be born in the first place, and I am sure the man grew up hearing about the blessing that he was to his parents. And he was; I am not disputing that. I just sometimes think Isaac was a little weak in the head, if you know what I mean.

First of all, my daughter was married to an Arab, and from what I know about their culture, Isaac should have been more of an iron-fisted type of guy than he was. Of course, Rebekah WAS beautiful, but still. Since Isaac knew that God had sent a sacrifice in his place, you would think he would have been grateful and have listened when God told him and Rebekah that the older of their sons would serve the younger. Isaac didn't listen though, and he planned to give his oldest son, Esau, the blessing of the firstborn.

Now, I am NOT taking Rebekah's side. She also should have listened to God. She had heard what God said too. I suppose you could say that she was trying to manipulate the prophecy since she helped Jacob trick his father to get the blessing he had been promised, and I do believe that God worked through that, but she still lied and encouraged her son to lie.

The reason I would NOT like to be her is because I wonder how she lived with the consequences of her actions. Although I do not quite understand the mechanics of the whole thing, evidently a blessing, once given, could not be rescinded. Nor, I suppose, should it have been since Jacob got the blessing that God had said he should. The end result, though, was that Jacob, Rebekah's obviously favorite son, went far away from her. Knowing how Laban tricked Jacob, I wonder if maybe her brother was the reason she was so eager to leave home. How must she have felt, then, sending her youngest son to live with a man she knew was dishonest? There was no evidence, either, that she had any relationship with Esau once Jacob left. She is barely mentioned, in fact, after the "big deception". Did she wonder about her grandchildren? Did she even get to see them?

I like reading the Old Testament stories because it is in the Old Testament that I found fellow sinners whom God loved anyway. Reading their stories is a comfort to me. Rebekah obviously has her place and purpose in Biblical history, but I am thankful that her story is her own. Since she is mentioned at all, we know that she was important, and I am assuming that God forgave her deception since there is no Biblical evidence that I can find to the contrary.

The forgiveness is all that really matters.

I am talking about our daughter, whose divorce was final in January.

She has come a long way in the past eight months. She works three jobs, and she is trying to recover from the financial mess in which her divorce left her. Her ex was abusive, and she has pretty much cut off contact with the people she hung with when she was with him. She is taking care of herself again.

All of these things make me happy, as does the fact that she has renewed an acquaintance with a boy she knew in high school. She tells me the little things that she does for her, like walking her to the door, and she is so happy! I am too; I am just sad that for a while those things were foreign to her.

Although she does not like this boy "that way", of course the thought has crossed her dad's and my minds. We just don't want to say anything. Anyway, we talked about it last night. I would prefer to see her marry a Christian when she marries again, and her dad thinks I am obsessive. He wants to see her marry for love.

I see his point; it is just that a similar faith background, I think, gives stability to a marriage. I don't know that this boy is NOT a Christian, but he does work on Sunday morning.

My husband reminded me that when I married him, he did not go to church. I knew that, but I always thought he was a believer, he had just gotten into bad habits. That's how I responded, and he just looked at me.

I hate it when my husband is right, even though I never wanted to marry a man I could outthink. I really have to get over the worrying bit. What was it that sermon said? 94% of what you worry about will never happen anyway. She is my baby, and I just want her to be happy.

We had a guest preacher yesterday, and the title of his sermon was, "Me, Worry?" I knew I was in for it.

To tell you the truth, I haven't known very many women who DON'T worry, although I know the Bible calls it a sin. I guess I think it is because we humans have only a limited power to control what happens to us, and things are happening elsewhere or have happened previously that affect the outcome anyway.

In the course of his sermon, the pastor mentioned "the sweetest verse in the Bible." This is the story that he told. An older church member lay in the hospital, and things were not looking good for him. A younger man visited, and in an attempt to comfort the old man, he asked if he could read the sweetest verse in the Bible to him. The old man agreed, and the younger man read him this verse from John 14:2:

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

"No, no, " the old man said, "read on." The younger man did, to the part of that chapter that says "that where I am, there you may be also."

"That's what I'm looking forward to," the old man explained. "I don't care about the mansions. I want to be where Jesus is."

Different verses in the Bible have been sweet to me at different stages in my life, but I see the old man's point. I have long thought that the difference between heaven and hell is that God is in one place and not in another, and I want to end up where He is.

I know that I only understand this in a limited human way. The best way I know to explain it is that when I am with my husband and we are doing things, I am usually really happy and time does not seem to exist; there is only the moment. I think that must be what heaven is like, sort of.

For someone with a degree in linguistics and certification to teach English, I have done a very poor job of communicating lately.

First I made a teacher who is not very much older than my children extremely angry because I disagreed with a conclusion she drew. In evaluating a student that I also serve, she wrote that his gross and fine motor difficulties were caused by his visual impairment, and she has been upset ever since I disagreed with her. I am not disputing that visual processing problems compound this student's other difficulties; I just thought that NEITHER of us were qualified to say that his visual problems were the source of his motor problems. She's ticked; I apologized and offered a compromise. Why did I "beat a dead horse," as she so eloquently put it? Because parents hold on to those kinds of things, and I have seen too many teachers latch on to visual impairment as the source of ALL a student's difficulties, so I think we need to beware of what we say.

Second, I yelled at my almost-eighty-year-old father. I think what I said needed to be said, but it still felt wrong to say it to him. His way of handling frustration has always, it seems to me, been to yell, and I took it when he yelled at me, but this time he was picking at my daughter. Yes, she is living in his house rent-free post her divorce, and yes, I do think she over-reacts sometimes, but there are still better ways to handle minor things like more room in the fridge than yelling. He knows her ex was abusive, yet he wonders why she gets upset when he yells. My husband says that I stuck to the issue and that what I said to my dad was long overdue in the saying, but it still hurt me to do it. I made sure to tell him that I loved him; he offered no such reassurances to me.

I hope that I have done a good job in talking to my children as adults, though I know I am not perfect. I think that part of my husband's and my efforts in this regard were because we saw the generation that raised us, and though they demonstrated that they loved us by supplying our physical needs, they were loathe to actually say the words. I read a sociological explanation of that once, that their parents didn't get too close to their kids because too many of their kids died and they had to preserve their mental health to care for the rest. My husband and I made a conscious effort to be demonstrative, but I know it was more of an effort for him than for me. He grew up in a family of all boys, and physical contact was always done in a rough and tumble sort of way.

Of the two problems I have had, the one with my dad bothers me more. My daughter called sobbing incoherently, and when I could finally get her to talk about what the problem was, the first word out of her mouth was "Grandpa." I guess she doesn't realize that, given Dad's age and the fact that my mom is already gone, a part of me always waits for the phone call that will tell me he is gone too. And secondly, I have noticed with my own children that they sort of rest in my love for them, but the opinion that matters most to them is their father's. I am the same way, and although I do think I needed to say what I said, I wish he would have said that he understood, or that he loved me, or something. I don't think he is perfect, but I think he has done the best he knows how to do most of his life, and I do know that he loves me.

Sometimes it would just be nice to hear the words.

My husband and I have been discussing the ever-troublesome assistant yet again. Yesterday he (the assistant) had to go home early because his wife had a breast biopsy and even though it was benign, the surgeon was going to remove it. That same day.

As a veteran of far too many "questionable" mammograms and surgeries, it does not seem right to me that ANY reputable surgeon would remove a benign tumor unless it was painful, and I can't see it happening on the same day as the biopsy anyway. Maybe in his part of Indiana the surgeons are more amenable. I don't know. Sometimes I wish I didn't have the intelligence to question these things. It would be easier, sometimes, to accept things at face value.

We know, for instance, that the assistant does not "wear the pants" in his family. His wife has been heard yelling at him and at my husband and no, just I don't think the fact that she has a highly paid executive job excuses her attitude. At the same time, though, I should say that I do not have and would not want a management position, mostly because I do have the brains (thank the good Lord) to question the stories that people put out. I just don't have the patience anymore. And I am well aware that not everyone's marriage works like mine.

I have a lot of respect for my husband, so it matters to me what he thinks of me. And I have (mostly) always tried to uphold the image that I have of him in front of other people. I can't imagine, for instance, yelling at your husband over the phone when you know other people can hear you, or worse yet, yelling at his immediate superior, but I know that it happens.

A couple of years ago, I deliberately omitted information from my husband because I knew I had done something of which he disapproved. It wasn't illegal or immoral, just something that we didn't agree on. He questioned me, and because he didn't ask the right question, I didn't have to tell him what I had done, but I felt terrible about it.

The guilt worked on me so much that I had to tell him what I had done a week or so later, and the WORST part of that was that I knew he would be disappointed in me. I knew he still loved me, but I had not lived up, at least in my own eyes, to the expectations he has of me, and what he thinks of me matters to me.

I have never thought that marriage was a 50/50 proposition, so I guess it doesn't really matter who "wears the pants" in the traditional sense. But I do think that BOTH partners in a marriage have a duty to uphold the best image of their spouse in front of other people. So I am sorry for having withheld information from my husband and I have no intention of doing it again. If he was constantly worried about what I thought of him, I DO think it might alter his behavior, so I feel a little bit (but not a lot) more sympathy for the assistant. Seems to me his wife's opinion of him matters so much that he can't think about pleasing anyone else, and although I do believe in pleasing your spouse, I think it is sad when you have to be afraid of what happens when you don't.

I was talking to my friend the other night and since both of us are grandmas, I thought our topic of conversation was odd. We were discussing child care. One would think that this would not be a concern for us since our children are adults, but we care a lot about who takes care of our grandchildren, too.

My friend did home child care for a while so she could be there for her kids. While my kids were young I only worked when my husband was laid off, but one year I did not work then either because I was not comfortable with the only child care I could find. My friend and I made it financially without working full time. Neither of us are rich, but we are comfortable.

I realize that staying home is not an option for many young families today, and I don't know the exact reason why although certainly today's prices play a big part. Institutional child care workers are not well-paid for the care that they provide, so I often wonder how those institutions justify their fees. I guess it all comes down to supply and demand, even with kids.

Child care is a nagging concern for me at this time because I know it concerns my son and his wife, the parents of my only grandchildren. Their day care provider just got a new job, and while the job is a real blessing to her, now they must hustle to find care with which they are comfortable for their two young sons.

My friend's granddaughter lives in the same town she does. Her paternal grandma, who runs a home daycare, watches her for free, and if a conflict arises, my friend stays home from work and takes care of her. My son and his wife are not so lucky. They live a goodly distance from my husband and me, and both of the grandmas they live close to work.

I don't think being a young parent is ever easy, but sometimes I wish our society had not evolved away from the family support networks we used to have. I know that you have to go where the work is, but it does seem like we as a society should watch out for our children.

CNN.com - Health care: The stealth revolution - Apr 19, 2005

This article states what those of us with chronic illness fear: that our health system will change and we will be denied the treatments that keep us among the healthy.

It is interesting to me that this article compares US health costs to Canada. In Ohio, we had a family doctor who moved here from Canada because he liked our system better than socialized medicine. In Canada and some other countries with socialized medicine, I would be denied Remicade because my rheumatoid arthritis is serum negative. If I didn't have it, I would probably already have filed for disability instead of remaining in the workforce for the past few years.

Health care cuts profits. Fine. I can deal with that. But how much profit do those at the top really need?

I found this story at http://www.freep.com/news/nw/obese_20e_20050420.htm

Obesity falls in rank as U.S. killer

April 20, 2005

CHICAGO -- Being overweight now ranks No. 7 instead of No. 2 among the nation's leading preventable causes of death, according to a new calculation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC revised its estimate in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The report states obesity accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC overestimated that 365,000 deaths annually were caused by being excessively overweight.

The CDC's new unofficial list of leading causes of preventable death includes illness related to tobacco, alcohol, germs, exposure to toxins, car accidents, guns, obesity, unprotected sexual activity and illegal drug use.

By the Associated Press

- Forbes.com

I just spent the weekend with my grandsons, who are 2 1/2 and four months, and they are two of the happiest babies I have ever seen. I wonder where adults lose this ability, and am convinced that, at least among women, the problem is that we want things settled way before they need to be. My grandsons live in the now, and although the oldest will tell you about his boo-boo or a misadventure, he is sharing information, not stressing. After dropping his dad's cell phone in a glass of water (which ticked off his father no end), he told me repeatedly that we do not put cookies in water or crackers in water, or...

You get the idea. He learned from the incident and moved on. Maybe that is part of the reason some adults have a problem with happiness. We look far ahead for solutions and we don't let go of our past mistakes.

I heard a story in a sermon yesterday that I hope I can do justice. It goes like this:

There was a man that was really enthralled with trapeze artists and how they let go with one hand and grab the next swing. He wanted to try his hand at their art, and finally, he got the chance.

His first problem was that he was afraid of heights. The trapeze artists very patiently lowered their swings and their platforms again and again until finally they were only ten feet off the ground. The man felt that he was ready.

He looked good at first. He left the platform and grabbed onto the first swing. When the second swing was in his grasp, he reached for it and caught it. He was elated! Then came the second problem. He couldn't bring himself to let go of the first swing. There he hung, a swing in either hand, on sort of a "coward's cross."

This kind of cross has, unfortunately, characterized my Christian walk far more often than I like to admit. I look ahead, but I am afraid to let go of what I am leaving behind. I was not happy about leaving Ohio and moving to Indiana, but I have found a life and friends here. I was not happy when my body would no longer do what I needed it to do, but surprisingly, life has gone on.

I have heard this described another way, too. Picture yourself standing on a cliff in your Christian walk. There is a way ahead, but to get there, you HAVE to jump and either trust God to teach you to fly or to cushion your landing. There have been a lot of times when I needed to be pushed off that cliff.

The sermon I heard yesterday was talking about spiritual health. In order to be healthy, to grow in your Christian walk, sometimes you have to let go. May God grant all of us the grace to recognize those situations so we can become the people He designed us to be.

When I was a little girl, I was better at this. I memorized the 23rd psalm when I went to Bible School that year. Later on, I had my tonsils out, and although I do not remember this, a story was written about my hospital stay that later appeared in the church newsletter, and I have it. At that time, a tonsillectomy meant a couple days in the hospital, and I was on a children's ward. Evidently, one of the nurses heard me comforting another patient, telling her that she would be OK, that even if her mommy and daddy weren't with her, Jesus was.

Why do I need to be reminded so often now?

This weekend, we visited our son and his family. Our son has been on terminal leave from the Marines for almost two weeks. He is twenty-six.

When we got home, my husband got a call from one of his employees. His nephew was killed in a vehicle accident last Friday. The pick-up he was driving rolled four times and threw him out, but the little girl with him, safely strapped in, survived. His funeral is tomorrow. He was twenty-six.

Tbey remind you of how sweet life is.

Is there anything better than the sleepy, Cheetoh-encrusted hug of a two-year-old? Or watching his four-month-old brother's cross-eyed concentration as he brings his hand to the toy he has his eye on?

Sometimes you forget that life is a gift.

It dawned on me today, as it does sometimes, that I have had a really happy week. This is despite the fact that I know I am getting a pink slip, that I have to have cataract surgery on both eyes and may not be able to drive for almost a month, that my father annoyed me greatly, that the conference I attended did not go the way I wanted it to.

Weird, isn't it? If I could put my finger on the reason I am happy, I would patent it. For now, it is enough to recognize it.

Google News

Once again, the reality of war hits us. I cannot even imagine how Jeffrey Ake's family must feel. I guess I don't really understand the Arab way of waging war, but then again, maybe it makes sense. You can only have rules of war if people follow them, and obviously at least some of the Arabs don't care about our citizenry although they would be quick to attack us on world news if we caused harm to one of theirs.

Our son is on terminal leave from the Marines, where he served in the Commandant's Own Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. For performances, both the Commandant's Own and the President's Own wear red uniforms. When we went to watch our son on parade, one of the Marines explained this. (I just had not thought to ask our son.) He said that the red uniforms were supposed to label the drummers and buglers as noncombatants so that the enemy forces wouldn't shoot them. I often wondered how well that worked during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and I was really nervous when I knew there was a chance for my son to go with his unit to perform in Iraq because I figured the red uniforms would just make them better targets.

My prayers go out the Jeffrey Ake's family for his safe return.

So. I surprised myself.

I called the pastor last night about the Board of Evangelism, and my intent was to tell him that I thought I was ill-suited. Not what happened.

In the course of our discussion, Pastor told me that he was the one who had called me to this particular board. Now I know that calls are supposed to go out to people because of their specific gifts, but I also know that actually they often go out to people the current board members think will serve.

The pastor said the reason he recommended me was because he knew I had a heart for missions. Really? I did not realize that he and I had had that many discussions. Once upon a time a long time ago, before I met my husband, I had planned to be a Wycliffe Bible Translator. I do not regret not being one; I think God had other and better plans for my life. I have had a feeling for missions since then, but with specific needs. Turns out that is how the Board of Evangelism at this particular church operates. They don't meet unless they have a need to meet, and they do things like keep the tract rack filled so that the members of our congregation have the materials they need to witness. They also have welcome packets for the community, complete with invitations to the church. The pastor did mention that people coming to our community has not been a big issue in the past five years or so, but still...it is a good idea.

I guess I don't think God has been particularly concerned with my personal comfort since we moved to Indiana. I, a certified SECONDARY English teacher, teach all grades special ed, one on one. My job dangles like a carrot yearly even though I get positive feedback about my performance. I have rheumatoid arthritis. And cataracts. And hearing loss. I am sort of afraid to go to the doctor lest I found out that something else broke. Obviously, there is a lesson here that I have NOT learned yet.

So. I jumped in. I don't know what God has in store for me here, but if I am not going to work, I will need something to keep me busy. And I serve a big God whose major concern does not seem to be making people comfortable. It seems to be making people happy.

He's done a good job so far. Guess I will have to trust him in this, too.

My ENT called last week and wanted me to get a blood draw for allergy testing, which I did. All of it turned out negative, so I have to call them tomorrow for the next step. I have sneezed around grass and pollen all of my adult life, and things have been worse the past two years. My congestion has been constant. I am not real thrilled about what the next step might be.

Last week, I received a call from my church to serve on the Board of Evangelism. While I do not mind serving, I would think that I, who am VERY uncomfortable with crowds, would be the last person to be called to the evangelism board.

I have been praying about it. If there is one thing that life in Indiana has taught me, it is that God intends to open up my world in ways that I would never imagine. I just don't feel a leading one way or the other, and I have to call the pastor in
an hour.

My husband and I have been members of the Gideons for about four years now. My dad has been a member for forty. I never met a member of the Gideons that I didn't like and didn't think was sincere. That is why I didn't think twice when my husband invited a couple from our Bible class to come to the one-on-one rally.

My husband understood the purpose of the meeting to be for people to gather information about the Gideons and what they do, so things started badly when the speaker said the purpose of the meeting was to get people to join. Then there was a list of questions for people to answer. Our guest objected to two of them.

The first objection that he had was that Gideons exclude Catholics from membership. I am pretty sure this is because Catholics generally believe in salvation by works, not by faith, although I know some who do not. Having been raised Catholic, our friend objected to this. OK.

The second objection he had was that you had to check if you believe in the lake of fire for the unsaved. I think he believes in hell, but not for people who have never heard the word. The way I explain that to myself is that the Bible says even the heathen, which in this case I think means untaught, have a knowledge of God. They would have to, wouldn't they, since they are made in His image? I don't think that people who haven't heard the word of God are condemned to the lake of fire, but those who have heard and have rejected it. That is not the way our friend took it, though, so he didn't join.

Part of the reason my husband likes this man is because he is intelligent. Another reason, I think, is because he doesn't just talk to hear himself. He has deep spiritual issues, and what he says about spiritual issues is always deep. My husband is the same way.

Now my husband feels awkward.I see our friend's objections, but I hope they don't make him think any less of the work that the Gideons do or of my husband. My husband truly tries to live his life for God.

Today has been a long hard day, and I have another six hours to go.

This morning I met with a teacher of the moderately mentally handicapped who is being asked to take one of my students who is severe and profound. She is not real thrilled.

This afternoon, I met with a mom who doesn't want her six-year-old placed in Life Skills when that is really where he belongs.

It is hard to watch people who want the best for kids struggle.

I have a splinter under the toenail of the big toe on my left foot. It has been there for quite a while, and I didn't even know it was a splinter. I thought it was sort of weird that I had bruised my toenail in a straight line, but it didn't hurt, so I wasn't going to mess with it.

My husband noticed the mark on my nail, and he dug around and found the splinter. I guess it is in there really deep, not just under the nail but under the callus, too. He felt compelled to dig at my toe to try to get the splinter out, and I let him dig for a while, but it hurt so I made him quit. I thought that the splinter would grow out with the toenail, but he says it is too deep, and he wants to dig again. I would prefer to leave it alone. The only time it hurts is when he is digging at it.

I wonder if sin is like that, especially sin that you haven't recognized yet. You might notice it, but it doesn't hurt either your body or your conscience, so you leave it alone. Then the Holy Spirit comes along and digs at it, but you are comfortable and would rather just be left alone. And maybe, just like it would probably be better for the splinter in my toe to be removed, it would be better for you go give up the sin even though there is some pain involved in the process.

It's just a thought. I hope I remember this next time the Holy Spirit reveals something to me.

I e-mailed what I had written to my dad to make sure I had it right. I was, after all, only ten. He said I did and then added that just a few minutes before the tornado hit, he had tried to convince his parents not to move to Florida because of the danger of hurricanes.

My grandparents moved to Orlando that year.

It doesn't take too much, really. This weekend, he wrenched on the lawnmower, sawed wood and built something and put together his new wheelbarrow. I haven't seen him that happy in a long time.

This is the fortieth anniversary of the Palm Sunday tornadoes, and they are all over the news here in Indiana. I lived in Ohio then, but one of the tornadoes hit my house, so I certainly remember them!

It was a really warm day that day, and I played outside most of the day. It was overcast and windy, but I didn't feel threatened in any way. Times were more laid back as I recall. We still had a black and white TV that my parents had bought in the fifties, and although we had cable at times, most of the time we had channels eleven and thirteen from Toledo and two, four and seven from Detroit. Sometimes we had channel nine from Windsor, too. Some people had UHF, but we had an old TV so we didn't. People didn't watch as much TV then, anyway. Ours had not been on all that day, but it probably wouldn't have mattered because they didn't have tornado warnings then like they do now, and there were certainly no neighborhood sirens.

This is what I know about the tornadoes. My older sister was standing at the front door looking out. A noise like a freight train started up, and she turned around to tell my mom that she was scared. It was then that the wind blew the window from the landing down the stairs.

I was asleep upstairs in the top bunk. I had played outside all day, and kids used to have earlier bedtimes. What I woke up to was my mom screaming, "My baby! My baby!" She ran through the broken glass the window had left, wearing high heels no less, to get my sister, whose crib was in my parents' room.

Having just awakened, I was pretty confused about the whole thing. Next thing I knew, my grandpa, my dad's dad, was by my bed, and he carried me down the stairs into the basement. I was pretty tall at ten, so I don't know how he managed it. Somebody, I can't remember who, told me later that nobody remembered me until they all got to the basement and counted heads. Either way, it was Grandpa who saved me. We sat down there most of the night, but the storm and danger were long over. I think we were just sort of in shock.

As it turns out, twin tornadoes hit Toledo. One of them took the roof off a store a block away, and that roof came through the roof of our house and cracked the ceiling in my bedroom. A woman on the other side of the block was sitting out on a second floor balcony watching the storm and she was killed, but there was no other damage on our block. The rest of the damage was in Point Place, several miles away. Much to my chagrin, I DID have school the next day.

We got a new garage because of the tornado, too, but I don't really remember what the storm did to ours. It was old and sort of like a carriage house. It had a flat roof, and my older sister liked to lay up there and sunbathe. I remember that the workmen thought it would fall down easily because it was old, but it was sturdier than it looked, and they had a hard time knocking it down.

My father's parents had been visiting us for Easter when the tornado hit, and later my mother's dad came. Her dad liked to fix things, and he just happened to be around at the time things were being fixed, so my sister, who was only two, went around saying that my dad's dad had broken the house but my mom's dad had fixed it.

This is my first post with bloggar. I was tired of losing posts when my internet connection failed.

I have written about him here before. The year he turned 50, he was involuntarily switched from another railroad department to this job. His job was blanked, so the choice was to take the job he is working or go back to the craft, and having been an assistant supervisor, he did not want to go back to the craft.

He has been on the job for four and a half years now. The job consists of patrolling the track for maintenance issues. The man lives a good sixty miles from where he starts work, and a lot of his job consists of driving because the track to be patrolled is 130 miles long. He is tired of driving. He is also "not comfortable" with making the decisions he needs to make to do his job.

I get most of this. I have been married to a railroad for almost 27 years now, so I know that the travel is wearing and so are the calls in the middle of the night and on evenings, weekends and holidays. What I don't get is being in a supervisory position and not being comfortable with making decisions.

The other night, my husband received an urgent call about a bridge in the northern part of his territory so he sent out his assistant. It was obviously the assistant's job. The call went out around 1AM, and several others had to be called, the problem being so big that my husband will have to check on it all weekend, a two hour drive each way for him.

The assistant went home around 4 when the troops had things under control. No big deal, really. What was a big deal is that he did not inform my husband of what was going on or that he was going home, and when my husband called him to find out if he was coming in at noon or whatever, the assistant said he would come in the next day.

Railroading is hard work. There is favoritism, I think, shown to the railroad which bought Conrail, and as a result, my husband works with half of the men he is supposed to have. The problem with that is that he doesn't have half the workload. I am sure my husband is in this particular position because he can hold things together with spit and chewing gum. Often, that is what he does, but such an approach really demands that everyone work together.

His assistant doesn't. Period. Even on patrol, although he will sometimes report things, he does not fix them unless he is forced. My husband felt compelled to say something to him about his going home, and the man's reply was that he was not going to kill himself for the railroad. Like I said, I understand that, but the point was that he, in this instance, failed to communicate.

My husband and I have often talked about the difference between "manspeak" and "womanspeak." He says that womanspeak has no business in his department because, well, there aren't any women except the occasional dispatcher, and they all speak manspeak. His assistant, however, speaks mostly womanspeak, and that is hard for my husband.

It was hard this time too, because the minute my husband pointed out the problem, his assistant went on the attack. My husband is hard to talk to (nobody else seems to think so), moral is low, my husband never pats anyone on the back... I don't believe these things are true, and while you might say that I am biased because we are, after all, talking about MY husband, I have found him to be a very good teacher. If anyone has a problem with him, it is because he does really expect you to work all day if you want to get paid for the day. Some of his employees, because the territory is so long and my husband cannot be everywhere at once, make a junior high game out of hiding. And the dodging work wouldn't even be so bad if there weren't so many other factors that are not under their control. They can't work on the track until the dispatcher gives them the track, and that seldom happens on a schedule that is convenient to their work. One of the things you have to understand about the railroad is that it make money by MOVING freight, so even though it is necessary to have track that is in good condition to move the freight efficiently, moving the freight is the first priority.

My husband's assistant says that there will be a voluntary separation from the railroad in July and that he is going to take it. I hope so. I think he is delusional at the age of 54 and with only climbing and inspecting bridges as experience, to think that he can go right out and get another job, but he certainly doesn't like this one, so maybe he belongs elsewhere. If he does leave, I hope whoever my husband gets as a replacement will care about a job well done.

My five-year-old autistic student, who usually screams the whole time I have him, gave me a kiss and a hug good-bye today.

Did you ever wonder what God protects you from that you don't know about? I figure the things we do know about are only a fraction of the actual protection that we get.

That is why this morning, when I lost my keys, I tried not to get too upset. See, I hardly ever lose my keys. I think it has to do with having a husband who traveled and needing to be self-sufficient, but maybe I am just paranoid. I don't know. Anyway, I couldn't find them anywhere, and I was going to be late to work. So I prayed and there they were, on the table where I never leave them. Go figure.

I had been complaining to my husband about the dumb things traffic does right around the time I leave, and I wonder. Did God delay my leaving so that I wouldn't be in the middle of one of the dumb things?

CitizenLink - Features - Dobson: Jefferson's Predictions of Oligarchy Have Come True

One of the benefits of my job is that I work across both grade and ability levels, so I am exposed to a lot of subject matter. Much of it I know; some of it bears a refresher. One of the areas in which I am being refreshed currently is history, specifically the development of our country.

As my fifth grade student and I read about the writing of the Constitution and the difficulties of its ratification, I learned. I suppose I had learned about the central government versus state government issue before, but it was nice to review it and to remember that my ancestors, on both sides, were concerned with being their own country. They wanted that country to be distinct from England and better too, I suppose. If Great Britain was good enough, why would they have gone to the trouble of a revolution?

As I have written previously in this blog, one of the quotes in my student's book is from Ben Franklin, who said that he thought maybe our Constitution was the best government to be had even though it is not perfect. Certainly, at least in its idealistic form, it provides for the citizens of the United States to be represented. I know there have been problems with that over the years as we struggled to include people of color, people who didn't own land and of course women as worthy of representation, but it seems to me that we have been making progress, at least until recently.

Thomas Jefferson is one of the people quoted in my student's book as having doubts about a central government. He was afraid that there was little difference between the president and a king, or at least that could be the case if the wrong man were elected.

I looked online for Marbury v. Madison online since I had heard somewhere that this was the case that Jefferson reacted to most strongly when discussing the judiciary, and I found a bunch of good information at http://www.landmarkcases.org/marbury/jefferson.html. One of the quotes was the one Dr. Dobson cites about making the judges ultimate arbitrators. The rest of the quote is also relevant as it states that "Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so....Their maxim is bonijudicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction] and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible as the other functionaries are , to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots." Jefferson is quoted as having written this to William C. Jarvis.

It seems to me that our courts are becoming despotic. I am particularly disturbed that they are quoting European law as a basis for their opinions since I thought the ideas was that our nation was different from those in Europe. It still must be different, at least for now, since people immigrate all the time and even nations who despise our politics come here for our freedoms.

I also read about the Federalist Papers with my student. I had forgotten that they were written to educate the people, the commoners, (you know, you and me) about the Constitution so that it could be ratified. In writing to Spencer Roane, Jefferson said this:"...if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the FEDERALIST of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government....then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others...The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of was in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

Seems to me that this is what IS happening with the judiciary in our country. The judiciary certainly thumbed its nose at Congress during the Terri Schiavo case. Jefferson, who was in favor of states' rights, would not have been pleased that Jeb Bush had no power over Terri's situation. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cited "international public opinion" in a recent court decision. Since when have Americans let the world decide for them? Since when have we become a country that did not decide for itself?

When Americans were faced with despotic rule more than two hundred years ago, they revolted. Will we revolt again? Do enough of us care?

I was listening to TURNING POINT with David Jeremiah this morning, and he was talking about how people have problems with believing the story about Jonah and the whale. I liked what he said about Jonah's sin, that he didn't just refuse to obey, but he tried to run. Dr. Jeremiah said that he thought the whole idea of running from God was sort of fruitless because, wherever you ran, he would already be there. Good point.

I suppose this should make me feel guilty, but it doesn't. I like my husband's aunt better than I like any of mine.

We went to see her yesterday. She lives about three hours northwest of us. Aunt Jeanette is eighty-four, but I don't think she knows it. She laughs at herself, which is a quality that I like.

Aunt Jeanette has been a widow for about eight years now, but it hasn't slowed her down at all. Well....she broke her hip, but she has a replacement and she is doing fine, working circles around me and most people my age, I think. She has already trimmed her bushes down and cleaned the leaves out of her flower beds. She was talking about how she needed a sofa that was of a size she could move and how she dusts under the bed. I clean under the bed and the sofa. Once or twice a year.

Aunt Jeanette is the relative of my husband's that is interested in the family history, and she shared some stories of which my husband was not aware. Like that his great-great-great-great-great grandfather (I think that's enough greats) was an aide-de-camp to George Washington. Like that she had sort of blipped out for a bit in the eighties. Like that her grandfather was such a skinflint that he could "squeeze a gnat and make a candle out of the tallow."

Jeanette is the oldest of six kids, and only three of them are left now. My husband said that when he was growing up, nobody liked her much, but I always have. When I first met her, she told me that she liked me, so it was a shame that I was going to hell because I wasn't Catholic and my husband was going to hell too because he married me. She didn't intend any malice toward me with that statement; that's just the way she is.

I don't know if Aunt Jeanette still thinks that I am going to hell, but she is VERY faithful with remembering my husband's and my birthdays and our anniversary. Often hers is the only anniversary card we get. She remembers to ask about the kids, and she tells us stories so that just maybe my husband can understand his family a little better. At any rate, her stories make for good listening. She was telling us yesterday how her mother had always wanted to go to high school and the school system had even lobbied for her to go, offering to send a buggy for her and find her quarters in town for the week in exchange for her watching some kids. Her father said no, though, and that was something about which Grandma always felt a loss. I added this to my own memories of Grandma. I only knew her five years, but one of the first things she did when she met me was to pull me down to her level and tell me to be nice to my husband or I would answer to her. I always respected that about her. When my son was a baby, she and Grandpa drove out to our house to see him. My husband pulled Grandma aside and commented to her that he thought the state had taken Grandpa's license. Her reply was that they had, but he insisted on driving, so she was going with him. It is not hard to see where Aunt Jeanette got her spunk.

Sometimes, I think this world goes too fast for us to appreciate our older relatives, and it is too bad. They have a lot to give, and all it takes to appreciate their gift is a little investment of time.

You see, I have this aunt....

I don't know how old she is really, but my mom would have been eighty this year and this is her second oldest sister, so she's old.

Anyway, yesterday I got home from work and found a message on my machine asking me to call her. I talk to her on the phone, oh, once every five years or so, so I thought this might be something big. She said she had news about a step-uncle of mine, and since I know he is almost eighty and had an ostomy a couple of weeks ago, I thought I should call.

I did, and she told me what my cousin had told me two weeks before about the uncle. My aunt had just found out, so it was new news to her, I guess. She made it sound like he was at death's door, and at almost eighty just having had major surgery, I realize that is always a possibility, but last I heard he was recovering, so I decided to go with that.

See, some of my family is sort of weird, I think, in that they hardly keep in contact at all, but the word "family" means a lot to them. It means something to me, too. I mean, my aunt is a widow, and I don't want anything bad to happen to her, but I haven't seen her in at least twenty years and we just exchange Christmas cards, so it isn't as if she really knows me at all.

My mom always said this sister of hers made trouble, and since my mom was a peaceful sort of woman AND my mom, I took her at her word. Maybe that has colored my picture of the aunt somewhat. HOWEVER...a couple of years ago, out of the blue and with no return address, I got a copy of a diet from somewhere in CA with a note that said that I should try it, that it would really help me. I couldn't figure out who had sent it and the person who did spelled my name right, Rebekah instead of Rebecca, and it made me sort of mad. If you have ever had a problem with your weight, you know that it is a very personal thing and it is hard to hear comments on it even from people with whom you are really close. Well, yesterday, my aunt gave me weight advice.

She hasn't seen me in twenty years, and I guess she doesn't realize that my weight is no longer an issue. I guess hers isn't either, but when I was a little girl and she would ride with us on mountain roads with no guard rails, I was afraid because she was so heavy and leaned to the inside to try and balance the car. Maybe gaining weight was my payback.

Speaking of which, this aunt said that one time I had been unhappy with her because she didn't hold my daughter very long and that now that I had rheumatoid arthritis, I knew why that was. Of course I do. Before my first grandson was born, I was terrified that I would not be able to hold him, but God was good and I have medicines that allow me to do so. I did not remember ever expressing displeasure that this aunt had not held my daughter because she has never been my favorite aunt and I doubt I would have asked her to except as a courtesy. The only time I can remember that she was around my daughter as an infant was at a family reunion, and at that time all of my mother's sisters (notice: NOT my mother) were telling me to spank my not-quite-two-year old son and give him something to cry about. He was tired because we were sleeping on the porch and he was in a strange house, so he didn't sleep. He cried.

I did not know that this aunt had rheumatoid arthritis and I still don't for sure. My mother said she was a hypochondriac, and when I asked my cousin, who knows way more about the family than I do, if anyone had RA, this aunt's name did not come up. Nevertheless, the implication was that I had been mean to her and now I had my payback.

I suppose I think about this because my mom told me a story years ago about watching my mouth, and she used this aunt as an illustration. She said that when another sister had been pregnant this aunt, who was not yet married, had made a face at her and told her she hoped her babies looked like that. This aunt ended up never having a child of her own, although she did adopt one. My mom said to watch what I said lest it come back to haunt me later.

Which brings me to my point. I really don't remember ever hurting this aunt, and I pondered over whether or not I should ask for her forgiveness since evidently she
WAS hurt, whether I meant to or not. And she IS old, and I don't want to hurt her further. I am old enough though, and I have had to ask forgiveness for so many of the things that I do, that I don't see the sense in asking about this one since I don't remember it and this aunt has the habit of, shall we say, exaggerating.

So I'm not gonna. But I don't say that lightly. I am well aware of the Bible verse that says that you should get the log out of your own eye before you worry about the splinter in your brother's. And I am not (as those who love me will attest) perfect. But more than that, I don't want to be guilty of some of the things I see in my aunt's behavior. So I'm not gonna apologize. But I hope God really convicts me if I am guilty of the same sins. I have enough of my own.

About.com: http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200503311017.asp

So sue me. I am a conservative, I guess. At least if that means that I think there might be SOME value in doing things the way they have always been done.

It is not that I am against scientific advantages, believe me. One of the women with whom I work was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis ten years before I was, and her body has been extensively damaged just because the treatments that are available now were not available to her then. My husband's mother died of breast cancer in 1973 at the age of forty-six, and we have often wondered if she might have lived had she been diagnosed in the 1990s instead of the 1960s. As I have stated before, I like my microwave and my dishwasher. And my computer.

No, the things I am talking about here are the things that make a civilization civil. We in the United States are outraged about the way some Muslims treat their women. We can't understand why men in supposedly progessive Arab countries like Jordan can kill their wives, daughters and sisters without fear of retribution, without being answerable to someone. I am all for the separation of powers, but it doesn't seem to me that, in Terri Schiavo's case, the system of checks and balances worked because the higher courts refused to get involved.

I have heard some people criticize Congress and the President for getting involved in Terri's case. They say that the Republicans are moving toward a theocracy, that being a government ruled by or subject to religious authority. I do not see that at all. Rather, I see a government that is divided over the issue of MORALITY, the concern about the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. It seems to me that some things are always wrong, and that the killing of innocent human beings is one of them.

It seems to me that the controversy that surrounded Terri Schiavo had more to do with who had "rights" over her body since she could not speak for herself than it had to do with whether or not she wanted to die. I fail to see why her death did not become so important to her husband until eight years after her collapse. Was that when he met his fiancee or when she got pregnant? And she died a long death, one that would be considered inhumane if it were to be the sentence for someone on death row. If she couldn't feel anything, why was her husband trying to create the right ambiance for her death? Why the stuffed animal if it didn't mean anything to her? Why the vase of flowers, flowers in water that she couldn't have?

I think that Terri's death will make it easier for people in this country to euthanize those who are inconvenient to them. I think that since the line has been blurred, such deaths may become more common, as they are in Europe.

And I think we had all better hope that we don't inconvenience someone.