It’s getting close to summer. The time for vacations, cruises, repainting the kids’ room, taking that trip to see your Aunt Brenda in Toledo (NOT a vacation).
If you’re a school teacher, you are almost giddy, knowing in the next week or two, you are done with the job for a couple of months and you can start working on weening yourself off the malt liquor you blend with your Keurig dark roast only to have to start again in early August. It’s almost not worth it. If you’re a doc or a lawyer, well, you can’t go far enough to where they can’t reach you.
I’ve thought about vacations-a lot, over the years. It was a goal, a dream refuge at the end of a work season. Caribbean, white water rafting in Canada, Hawaii, a small town in the Rockies I am not mentioning because someone reading this would just go gum it up. I thought of cruises, maybe to Alaska. My brother and his wife have done them in Europe. Then I was thinking my ‘stateroom’ would be near the steel door that had ‘Boiler Room #3 stenciled in black on it.
I remember growing up and we went up to our cabin. It was not much more than a converted construction trailer, two in fact, woven together with nails. Mom was what made it happen. Mom was what made everything happen. Dad went to work, and Mom filled all the cracks and crevasses in the family life.
I’m in the season….
I’m at the season of life where I don’t want to go to work the Mt. Everest base camp anymore, teaching all the teams there some sea chanties while I deliver the mail, get the soup ready, making myself useful as the only white sherpa. I have given up on making it to Israel, seeing the ‘original’ streets, thinking Scotland and Ireland and England have lost their priorities as well. I like places, when I think about them now, they are peaceful in my mind. Things I like to do. I can hike, bike. Maybe I can even run if there’s a fire or someone bets me $5 I couldn’t run a mile.
But I really like peace. I like an occasional morning pancake and two cups of sexed up coffee after the gym I still make it to. Sometimes, I like a late lunch, and a light if anything dinner-maybe a scotch—maybe. I like reading in bed before I fall asleep with my book on my chest, maybe one of mine I am reading again. I like my dogs snoring-loudly at the foot of the bed.
There’s a reason….
There’s a reason the Bible wrote about Jesus’ mother Mary and why she was sometimes idolized. Mothers are the half God made to nurture and love and care for the family. Today, they have careers and dreams outside of the home. That’s good and fine, but we can’t forget what they are truly made for. Like fathers, he can’t forget what he was made for either. If we choose not to be a partner in a marriage or have children, you are surely able to not do that. But we can’t overlook if you are wanting to have that family, you are perfectly made for it. God loves us and gives us what we need, daily https://www.patheos.com/blogs/insideourgooeyminds/2025/02/jesus-loves-me-as-wide-as-his-arms-can-stretch/
Life can be exciting…..
Life can be exciting and crazy and loud and requiring purple hair and mosh pits.
Or-it can be a, well, whatever you want it to be. In a world where we trouble ourselves with believing what is true or real, sometimes it’s just good to know The Plan is always perfect. Always.
Happy Mother’s Day to all you mums and to mums who have completed their run and who have gone home. God wants us to be joyful. He gave us music and for some, it’s a bagpipe. Got a little number for you to honor you and your role in everyone’s life. If I could make it happen, I would have these boys’ pipe and drum you awake tomorrow morning, just because you deserve a good-well, piping and drumming. Ya need to play it loud.
Mark Williams spent the first twenty-one years of his career as a Special Agent for the Organized Crime Division of the State Attorney General’s Office. As part of his duties, he investigated organized crime, homicides, and fraud cases submitted by other agencies to that office. He has traveled across the United States as an instructor for law enforcement in various capacities. After he retired, he became a high school English teacher at an inner-city school in central Phoenix where he is the fourth generation in his family to live in the valley. Mark was married for almost thirty-eight years and is a retired widower. He has three children and ten grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.