Youth

I don't like to think of myself as nostalgic.  I think of the New Year as having only slightly more significance than its being 1 minute after midnight of any given December 31st.  A human created, artificial constructe.  Why not Summer Solstice or Winter Solstice as the New Year?

But here it is.  This construct.  We're all wishing each other a good new year.  Recalling the past year.  And I can't help but think back, not just to the previous year, but way back.  I receive New Year's wishes from not just new, but old, way old.  Friends from my youth...

So this song isn't great poetry, but maybe because it isn't, because of its simplicity...its naivete, it reminds me of my youth. Every time I hear it, a soft enveloping pain gathers in my chest, like a misty cloud of regrets.

ABBA or Colin Firth, take your pick.





I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain

We made our way along the river
And we sat down in the grass by the Eiffel tower
I was so happy we had met
It was the age of no regret
Oh, yes

Those crazy years
That was the time of the flower-power
But underneath
We had a fear of flying
Of growing old
A fear of slowly dying
We took our chance
Like we were dancing our last dance

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
In the tourist jam
Round the Notre Dame
Our last summer
Walking hand in hand

Paris restaurants
Our last summer
Morning croissants
Living for the day
Worries far away
Our last summer

We could laugh and play

And now you're working in a bank
A family man, a football fan
And your name is Harry
How dull it seems
Are the hero of my dreams ?

Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain

We made our way along the river
And we sat down in the grass by the Eiffel tower
I was so happy we had met
It was the age of no regret
Oh, yes

Those crazy years
That was the time of the flower-power
But underneath
We had a fear of flying
Of growing old
A fear of slowly dying
We took our chance
Like we were dancing our last dance

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
In the tourist jam
Round the Notre Dame
Our last summer
Walking hand in hand

Paris restaurants
Our last summer
Morning croissants
Living for the day
Worries far away
Our last summer
We could laugh and play

And now you're working in a bank
A family man, a football fan
And your name is Harry
How dull it seems
Are the hero of my dreams ?

Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain

Happy New Year.  Artificial construct and all.

On Losing My Mother

My mother died in 1987.  As that time came back, I slowly remembered it was July.  I remembered it was hot; that I had to get there in a hurry.  Late July, I think.  It's July again, but 2012.  I do the math and, slowly, realize it's been 25 years.

25 years.

They waited for me to get there - Korea - from Boston.  That I should see her and say my goodbye.  But I couldn't.  When I got there, to their living room and saw the small, simple casket, I couldn't see her.  I couldn't stand the notion of someone lifting the lid.  My aunt encouraged me to see her; that it was important to fully understand that she was gone.  The man from the funeral home was there, ready to lift that lid.  But I still couldn't.  I collapsed on my dad's shoulder and begged him not to open it.  For me, I had no trouble fully understanding that she was gone.  That she was in that box, for 3 warm monsoon days, waiting.  Forever.

My good friend just lost her dad.  She is 42.  An adult. A grown-up.  Maybe it hurts more the more memories you've chalked up; the deeper understanding you have of what it is to lose a parent.  I was 27.  I don't know if it hurts less or more.  Not that it really matters.

I flew back, went through my days competently.  I had to find a job, and I did.  I interviewed well, showed up on time, did a good job.  But emotionally, I was needy and behaved inappropriately, blind to others' needs, blind to my own deficiencies.  I'd fall asleep in my new apartment, in my new bed, having put in a full day at my new job.  But every night, as if a clapping thunder had awoken me, I'd sit up in bed, my heart pounding, a dreaded sense hovering over my stupor.  Every night, for years. 

At some point, I no longer woke with a pounding heart or a sense of dread; I simply awoke.  At 11, 12, 2, 3.  For over 20 years.  I don't know if it had simply become habit or what.  I still have trouble sleeping.  Someone suggested that if I worked hard all day, I wouldn't have trouble sleeping at night.  Circumstances are such that I no longer have to see that person.  It's a good thing, too.

I was 27.  Just out of graduate school, embarking on a career.  I'd guess my mom would have been proud of me.  I don't know.  I do know that I never had the chance to get to know her as a grown-up.  Maybe 27 seems plenty old to some of you readers, but I know how young I was, how much I needed to grow, indeed, how much I would grow.   In painful ways I never wanted to.

A year or two before she died, she had a choice to go on vacation, or fly me to Korea to see her.

She chose the vacation.

I think the hardest part was growing up and realizing that I was not the most important thing in her life.  That by my mom and dad moving to Korea, not only did I lose my physical home, but I also lost my psychic dwelling.  I slowly came to realize the existential loneliness that philosophers over the ages have contemplated.  I.  I alone.  Separate and independent from my mother. Where do I dwell?

I sought a home at my brothers'.  At an aunt's.  At friends'.  All of them were fraught with awkwardnesses not of their doing, but as circumstances of our days.  Who could I turn to that was completely and totally on My Side?  Where could I "let my hair down" and rest?

In the letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul writes, "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."

And there I dwell and hope to, the rest of my days.

First Day of Pool Season

Our little town doesn't have a local pool.  Instead, there are several private club pools you can join.  It's nothing luxurious but clean, safe and just the right size.  I can pretty much scan the whole place and find who I need to find.  The lifeguards all know the families.  Once, when Boo snuck to the bathroom without letting me know, I had all the lifeguard hollering his name.  Cuz they all knew him.

There are probably 4 or 5 school districts represented and we don't go to school with most of the kids, not do we travel in the same circles.  Most of these kids, I see only during the summer.  So it's fun to watch them grow these past 8 seasons.  And watch my boy grow:

2006, age 4

2007

And the big day when he learned to swim!

With his baseball-coaching Unca Paul, 2010

With his dad, 2010

And May 28, 2012:

Growing into the lankiness of boyhood.

Cleave, 2

Our Boo is very attached to his father.   It may be at age 9, he is starting to see the world from beyond the film of childhood.  We hear that it's around this age that children begin to see aspects of this world that were merely distant imaginings, like illness and death. It may be that he is just now able to begin processing the fears and pains of having watched his father felled to the floor.  His mother weeping and screaming, trying to get a response.

If you do not already know, our little guy has Asperger's Syndrome.  One of its symptoms is the inability to understand others' nor even his OWN emotions.  He has watched his father go off in an ambulance.  Over. and Over.  Something like 13 times in 12 months.  Through it all, this little guy never shed a tear.  I so distinctly remember, as I was tending to my fallen hero, then desperately going to the phone to call 911, seeing this little guy walking along the edge of the room.  In my mind, he is surfing on a board of denial, sweeping his hands along the walls, the doors.  Several years ago.

Several weeks ago, he started saying, "Oma, daddy, remember when daddy was in the hospital and I gave him my baby bunny?"  Yes, dear, that was very kind of you.  We didn't think much of it.  Then one day, little guy was laying with his dad, their heads nestled together.  Once again, "Dad, remember when you were in the hospital and I gave you my baby bunny to hold?"  But this time, his dad felt a tear trickle down little guy's cheek and land on his own, the rivulet continuing.

What is it like to not know your emotions?  [Alright, cut it with the comments about your husbands, okay?]  What is it like when you can barely recognize happy, sad, angry, let alone the more subtle satisfied, suspicious, or dismayed?  When you have to be shown flashcards of facial expressions and associate them with a word that may or may not make a connection?  It is stepping out of yourself, and looking at yourself, recalling the flash cards you've seen in therapy and see if one matches with your own psychic face.  Like recalling a spelling word.

But then again, we get some unique perspectives from our Boo.  And sometimes, it's spot on.  Like when recently, his dad was away on business.  They've been such close buddies lately.  Boo is in the back seat of the car, and we are driving away, leaving dad at his conference.  This time, the tear is not a rivulet but a watercourse, running over, under and around him.  Swept away, and little guy says,

"I feel like he's right next to me, but he's not here."

Is that not the essence of emotional pain?  being cleaved but then cleft?  Amazing, clear thinking from a boy who doesn't understand emotions.

Right.

Cleave

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.  - Genesis 2:24 (NASB)

I just read Little Bee.  We is thinkin it be bout goodies and baddies.

There is a horrific scene of g*ng r*pe. This isn't a spoiler because as soon as you start the book, an ominous valance of doom hangs over you.  Like a cloud which lovely fullness turns gray at the horizon.  It's just a matter of how and when the story unfolds.

Cleave isn't a word you hear much these days.  Except on the Food Network for cutting meat. Isn't it odd that a word would have a meaning and it's opposite? The word that means

to adhere closely; stick; cling.  to remain faithful.

also means

to split or divide by or as if by a cutting blow, especially along a natural line of division, as the grain of wood.

It made me wonder why r*pe is so traumatic.  Such a deep, primal wound that seems to even overshadow beatings.  Why children, who are barely aware of their body parts are almost irreparably damaged by it.  Not just the physical pain and physical trauma but there seems to result in a knowledge of deep betrayal.  A knowing.  

She also gave some to her husband....and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.  - Genesis 3:6b - 8 (NASB)

When sin entered, why did Adam and Eve know they were naked, of all things?  How did they think to cover their loins of all things?  Could it be that their cleaving physically represented their cleaving psychologically, emotionally...primally?  And that something deep, at their very core, had been irreparably broken?

God is a poet.  God is Poetry.  Would He create us with this Cleaving which does not reference His own Cleaving to His trinity?  I cannot help but think that for  us to Cleave is to see a little glimpse of the Trinity.  Separate but Whole and Equal.  At His earthly end, it was not hanging by nails through his body, cleaving his sinews.  It was the agony of the cleft between Himself and The Father.

Perhaps the r*pe, the forcing, the tearing, perhaps it is essential humanity cleft to the core.  Left broken and shattered down the primal human grain.

Bedtime Butterflies, Birds & Bees

Butterfly kisses on his damp cheeks.  A long, rough day for my 9-year old.
A punch from a camp-mate.
Too much sun.
Too much fun.
Too much of everything today.
He fought my hugs, wanting to fight the world.  A bed time book, a long, long prayer and lots of hugs brings him to sleep's door.

Little flutters of oma's eyelashes on his baby skin.  Butterfly kisses.

"Is that what butterflies do when they get married?"
I chuckled and said, "I don't know. "
He ponders, "They don't have weddings because they're just insects."
Then concludes, "They just mate - like snakes."

I hope I'll remember this night.  These moments...these moments? They're what make up our life.

Good night, sweet one.

July Vacation 2011

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I watch my son grow.  In inches and pounds.

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But also in love and joy and even grief.  I see each year, that he loves his extended family more and more.  And as such, his grief is bigger each time we part.  For a mom who never saw her child grieve, it is a beautiful thing to watch big rivulets of shiny run down his ashy, tanned cheeks.  Tears were fears and cries were for old traumas. 

The pure, salty sadness of tears is delicious to my soul.

Step by Step

She cried, remembering the pain of the dream.

Her first waking sense was the smell of her own tousled hair, and the damp, wrinkled cotton on her face.  It was only then that she felt more than saw the white light of morning.

Her nights were shot with dreams - of chases, abandonments, of her lover just beyond her reach.  He was leaving her and he was cold to her, oblivious to the gnawing, churning inside of her, the pleading that refused to come out of her, locked inside, choking her.

He came in gently to raise her, as he always did.  "I had a bad dream," she whispered.  Then she cried, remembering.  He sat, silent, sympathy on his face but not understanding.  He knew about her dreams, and how she would cry 3 and 4 tissues' worth, even after she was awake and knew it had only been a dream.

"Don't leave me," she begged.
He chuckled, "I'm not planning on it, sweetie."

It was a phrase that never sat right with her, never comforted her in the way she wanted to be.  This time, this time, she challenged him, "I know you're not planning on it, but will you?" she asked with emphasis on the verbs.

He was silent.  His shoulders twitched as it always did when he was uncomfortable.  He was the kind of man, like many men, who felt disingenuous talking about his feelings.  But that discomfort could sometimes look like a person caught in a lie.  Slowly, as if confessing something embarrassing, he said, "Well, it takes steps."  He paused.  "Those things don't just happen."

And in that moment, she understood everything he was trying to tell her:

"I'll never leave you," is the phrase young women want to hear, a romantic ideal of someone's emotional response, eschewing the inevitabilities the future will bring.   "I"m not planning on it," acknowledges the real world temptations but says "I'm committed to you and I will keep my vow to you no matter what I face."

And in that moment, she was comforted in the way she needed to be.

Mother's Day Redux

I had a post stirring in my head.  Here, I had already written it:


Bond - Shaken & Stirred

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Royal Wedding Full of Grace

Back in the early 80's when Diana Spencer wed Prince Charles, I was all over that wedding thing.  Even if the Prince's ears stuck straight out.  I was as young as they, and less prone to over analyze the meaning of life.  [The American prince back then was John Kennedy Jr., who was only a year or two younger than me.  I couldn't help secretly wondering if I should transfer to Brown.]  I sighed through that royal wedding.

This time around when Catherine Middleton wed Prince William, I was quite a bit less enthused.  After all, I am more the age of their parents.  It is a little harder to swoon over a prince the age of a son.  Although I didn't watch the wedding on Friday, I had some time to myself this morning and watched one of the many reruns.  I've always admired William and Catherine, for their good looks and their appropriateness and wisdom in the wildly public life they lead.

I immediately thought of Grace Kelly of Philadelphia, and my Googling proved I wasn't the only one.  There are the easy comparisons of Catherine and Grace both coming from a "common" family that had risen in society through business dealings, and then, of course, marrying a prince.  They both have understated elegance and well... grace.

I set aside my disbelief, let myself float into a world where not only are you the "it girl" of the event, you're the "it girl" of the whole world.  I set aside thoughts of all the glamorous weddings that ended in terrible sadnesses...Diana and Charles, Andrew and Sarah, Jackie and JFK, Caroline and John, Grace and Prince Rainier...

...and wished them as much happiness and love and hope as...

Grace and Dave.

We are an adopted Prince and Princess of  His Heavenly Kingdom.

The Question of Love

I think a lot about Love.  Love seems to justify everything these days.  Love and tolerance. 

What is Love?  Puppy dogs and sweet smelling babies?  A brand-new pick-up truck or a new pair of red pumps?  Is it a feeling?

If God is Love, then does it not come from Him, defined by Him?  Or do we define Love, then put it upon God? a god?  Does not Love have a definition? or do we make it up as we go?  Are all actions justified if we have love?  Can even abhorrent actions be justified by love?

"Because I love her..."
"I may not be the best mom/dad/wife/husband but I love him/her/them."
"Two people who love each other..."

Is God God, or is He only what we want Him to be?  Do you define God or is God pre-existent?  Is God only Love?  or is He also justice and wrath? Can a God be only love without justice?  Can a parent be a good guide to a child with only a love that is void of justice?  Does not love, the love of  a parent, have definition?  I knew a mom who had 4 children to four different men, 2 who were incarcerated.  One man had the custody of one child.  The other three were finally taken by social services because she was repeatedly arrested for shop lifting, the children were sleeping on mattresses on the floor next to dog excrement, and there were garbage bags of unwashed clothing thrown in the basement.  Tears streaming down her face, she wailed and thrashed in the courtroom as the children were taken away, because "she loved them."  Does it seem like an open and shut case to you?  If you really look, do each one of us define love as we want, in a way that is convenient to us?  Or is there something bigger, greater than us, that defined ---no made Love?

It says in the Christian Bible that people have come to love the Created above the Creator.  Worshiping money, nature, animals...even Love itself. And hold it higher than God Himself.

Does Love win over all? or does God?

Grace notes: The point I am trying to make is that people actually worship Love.  A Godless Love.  They worship and honor love over God. I would contend that God is Love, but Love is not God.  That is how people justify what they do, whatever it is, no matter how abhorrent it is to God, because they themselves define love instead of looking to what God tells us about love. 

God needs to win out because we need to define love as God has defined it, within the context of his mercy and judgement.  We live in a world that a (self-defined) love wins the day and I think it is tragic.

Not Too Hot

HH isn't feeling too hot.
Oma isn't either.

Boo made his daddy a cup of hot tea.
His daddy made him and his oma breakfast.


Me?  I'm sittin' on my a$$ blogging about it.

Sunday Sounds

Boo:  It's amazing that you love me.  That you love me forever. 
Me:  Yup.  I love you.  Forever.
Boo:  How did you know that?  Where did you learn to do that?  Did God love you first and teach you?
Me:  The Holy Spirit gave it to me.  All good things come from above.



"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."  - James 1:17

True Value

I believe that all humans are valuable, having been made in the image of God.
I believe everyone is gifted in different ways.
And those who are less gifted have something important to give to the world.
I believe God has a place in this world for each one of His children.
I believe that no matter what you are given in this life, you can rise above it, or rise because of it and triumph.

I can give a convincing argument and actually believe all that.

But when it's my own son, I have to face that what I really value is intelligence.  The kind that gets you into an Ivy League university and hired into a corner office.

When we were getting ready for Boo, HH and I prayed that he would be smart.  That was the only thing we prayed for.  Yes, yes, healthy.  But above all, smart.  We didn't ask for athletic or pretty or tall or charming.  We asked God for Smart.  I am sure HH meant it when he said because it would be the right fit.  And I must have believed that too.  But dig a little deeper and I meant I wanted Smart because Smart means an Ivy League education, a nice marriage and a house in the suburbs.

Last summer, a dear, sincere friend and I were laying on our chairs at the pool chatting about this and that.  She knows about Boo's struggles and asked me if it was harder because I was smart.  I have long believed that to know I was intelligent was to understand I was merely the recipient of good genes that were passed down to me; that it was not my own doing

Even as I answered, "Yes...."  Even as the word came out of my mouth it rang false...dissonant...arrogant. 

As the week went by, that exchange kept coming back to me.  Raising Boo is NOT hard because I am *so* smart!  It is hard because I am Impatient.  Is impatience linked with Intelligence?  No!  May it never be!  Quick-tempered by nature,  I get impatient with this child, this special treasure, this precious one because....?  Why?  Merely because of my nature?  or is there something stinking in the cellar?

Here's what I learned: I get impatient because I am not actually interested in helping him learn, but because I want him to fit into my world.  Fit into my mold of Smart = Valuable.  Fit into this peg, dammit!

Fill in the blank.  Push the right button.  Pull the right lever.  Ding! Ding! Ding!! Then you will be of True Value.  In my eyes.

 And that is just. plain. dumb.

The Right to Choose

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"I choose to love you.

I do.  Some moms?  They get pregnant; have a baby in their tummy by accident.  Like your tummy-mom.  She wasn't ready to have a baby.

I choose to love you."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do.  I chose to call the adoption agency.  I chose to fill out all those forms, to make copies, to mail them, to travel to different offices, to make all the phone calls.  I chose to buy airplane tickets, get on a plane, to pick you up.

I choose to love you.

But you don't have to love me.  That's your choice."

He lifts his head from my lap and his cheeks are flushed, his body radiating the odor of fear.  His round cheeks, his unbridged nose are covered with weeping.  Not a rivulet or shiny drop, but awash like the streets in a rainstorm.

We sit like that, him surrendering to my love, boneless, heaped over my shoulder, wetness upon my shirt.

I didn't know what the words would do; what the tears would wash.  But today, yesterday and the day before, he holds my hand as if he chooses to love me.

The Apple of My Eye

Adam was lonely. Despite all the animals. I guess a dog is not man's best friend.  So God made a woman just. for. Adam.  A soul mate.  God who merely thought and it happened.  God who did not ponder and wonder but was wholly complete in thought, word and deed.  He made a creature that would completely fill Adam's needs.

Then the serpent came and pointed to the forbidden fruit.  Eve looked at the fruit and it looked good to eat.  How many things were there in the garden that were good to look at and good to eat?  It was only when the serpent pointed that forbidden one out that maybe Eve started to want it.  It's like going to the mall...you see all these things you never knew you had to have! 

Eve was living in paradise.  PARADISE.  Do you understand the circumstance?

Perfection.  Living someplace that was perfectly designed for her, for him.  Living with your soul mate.  So much so that they had no name for each other.  It was only after the fall, when there was a separation that they needed an identifier.  There was no death.  No aging, no wrinkles, no imperfections. I bet she never had to say, "Adam, does this make me look fat??"

And yet.
And YET.

She had everything, but it wasn't enough.  She had to have that other fruit.  Is the Genesis Garden of Eden a true story, a myth or an allegory?  What does this story say about us as a woman?  Do you see yourself in Eve?  I do.

I pondered this as I tend to do.  Percolate.  Simmer.  I have a wonderful husband, a marriage blessed by God, a beautiful earthly home.  I really cannot ask for a more fabulous husband - one who loves me, who cares for me, takes care of me, is patient with me.

And yet.
And YET.

I want more.  I want him to be neater.  My bedroom usually looks like a laundry bomb went off.  Over the years, I just could not keep up and slowly gave up.  I was going to fight and nag every day or I was going to accept it.  I chose to accept it.  But not really.  It eats away at me in a deep, dark corner of my being.  Dissatisfied, unhappy.  This is my home!  My nest!  My sanctuary!  Blah blah blah.  Yadda yadda yadda.  Am I not just. like. Eve??

Oh, the fruit of a perfectly clean bedroom looked good to me.  And I wanted it.  I recognized that desire for something more than I have, something else to make me happier, even though I am in Paradise!  I have turned away from that fruit and to enjoy all the goodness of my world that God has blessed upon me.

I love you HH.  Even if your chair is piled high with clothes.

Time Unknown

I saw a man old or young in tattered clothes

Tattered pants layered upon layers

Muttering and grunting breathing

He dragged his lame foot

and a broken wheelchair

I thought: He once was

a baby soft cheeks

loved and cooed

My boy

I

hope

you won't

turn into him

Your cute mutterings

about elevators and firetrucks

turning into scary guttural mutterings

Your jet hair I love tangled and tattered

soft cheeks and unbridged nose covered

pushing a broken whatever thinking or not

sirens ambulance hospital doors that shut

you in.

or out.

A Mom's Story

"Boo doesn't love me," I said.  My therapist told me my expectations were unrealistic, that I was putting an adult's definitions and behaviors onto a little child.  She was good, but that didn't sit right with me.  That was the beginning of my end with her.

If Boo loved me, it was a love maimed by terror and trauma and insecurity.  Toddling along, he would avoid me, hurt me in little ways.  Never sit in my lap.  Never.  Unless you count the 1 second his little butt would touch my thighs before sliding off to something else.  He never said, "I love you," no matter how many times he heard it from us.

Whenever we would get in the car, he would repeat little phrases over and over, one after the other.  "Stimming," they call it:  self-stimulating behavior to soothe themselves.  It made me crazy.  Crazy. And sometimes, I'd forget he was this beautiful, little, little child, and I would act in ways that still twist my stomach in knots from shame.

Now he says, "Oma, I love you," over and over again.  Sometimes, every 5 minutes.  It nearly made me scream, but I must have learned a thing over the years because I calmly said, "Boo, why do you say 'I love you' so much?  Do you feel it or do you just want to say it?"

"Well, mom?  Mom?  It makes my love get big."

Happy Mother's Day to me.

Love is the Answer

Don't you think God loves everyone?  Shouldn't God love everyone?  After all, God is love, right?

If so, then.  (Do you remember that from high school math?)  If so, then does God love Hitler, too? Ceauşescu? Some of you will say yes, that God loves Everyone.  No matter what. 

But most of you will say no.  Definitely not Hitler.  How about his generals and SS?  But not the people who watched the Jews get rounded up.  How about the Swiss, who in their "neutrality" let Jews open to capture and torture and death?  Just the government? or all the people?
How about
Bin Laden?
Jim Jones?
Idi Amin? 
Pol Pot?
Stalin? 
Mao-Tse Tung? 
How about Kim Il Sung?
Andrew Carnegie?
George W. Bush?
Glenn Beck?
How about the pedophile down the street?  How about the thieves of the Saving & Loan scandal?  The CEOs who got multi-million dollar bonuses on wall street?  I  have a friend whose neighbor dumps trash into her yard, including cigarette butts. 

Where would you stop?  How do you define loveable?  And so, how do you define who God should love?

Does a loving God correct and admonish, or does He allow us to do our own will at every turn?  After all, God is love, right? 

Or, is Love your God?

Working for Peanuts

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Boo and dad, eating peanuts on the back deck. It's a beautiful thing.

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