Tonight my family consumed one of their very favorite meals...YOYO.  This treat is typically reserved for Sunday evenings, but today's schedule called for an exception. 

YOYO = You're On Your Own.

Signed,
Werks 4 Mee

I try to keep my email inbox cleaned up as much as possible.  Really.  I do.  I even take small consolation when Sue (Smith) blogs about how many email are in her inbox at a given time.  (Thanks, Sue, for making me feel better.)  But there are always a few pesky messages that take off their jackets, put on slippers, and take up permanent residence.

So tonight I was trying to delete a few before hitting the sack, and I discovered an email entitled...(drum roll)...WAJ News - December 9, 2007.  Yes.  2007. 

I asked myself, "Self, why in the world is this email still hanging around on the premises?"  I opened it up, and realized I had kept it because it featured pictures from WAJ 2007...which I had hoped to spend more time with.  Maybe see if could print one or two.  Maybe save them in a folder or something.  :-)   Loved seeing James Tealy up top, head tilted back, laughing.....  Or Belinda below that....  Or Maurice below that....  (Especially because none of them made it this year.) 

Memories.........of the way.......we were.  (Tune up those violins, folks.)

BUT - now that WAJ 2008 has come and gone, you would think I would have the fortitude to hit the delete key.

Alas.  No.

Signed,
May B. 2 Mar O.

Do you believe God has a journey designed especially for you?  I do.

"When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else." -Joseph Campbell

Signed,
Jusst Form E.

I'm at my hotel in St. Louis, eagerly awaiting tomorrow's kick-off of WAJ 2008.  Somehow I ended up at the same hotel as the very first year I came to Write About Jesus back in 2004, although I didn't realize that was the case until I actually arrived. 

It's probably a good thing I've been here before, because this place is absolutely and thoroughly undetectable from the main road!  I remember in 2004 going up and down that road and telling myself "It has to be here!"  But I couldn't find it.  I called Scott back in Denver and he was mapquesting it "on the fly" and telling me, "Bev, it has to be right there!"  But it wasn't.  Was it?  I asked at a restaurant very nearby, and they didn't know.  (That's a bad sign.)  I think I finally succumbed and asked at another establishment and they were able to give me a clue as to where it was "tucked back in there".  Aha.  Whatever happened to the age-old real estate advice of Location - Location - Location?!!!!

Joel was kind enough to give me a ride from the airport, and thankfully we were able to drive right up to the hotel.  You know what?  I'm sure glad we serve a God who cares enough to take care of that little detail and "prepare the way" clear back in 2004!

So here I am, kind of where it all began four years ago, and I'm having a lot of de ja vu moments right now....

I think I'll just soak those in and head for bed.

Signed,
Wutts Nekst?

Fall has always been my favorite season.  --  Almost every year I vividly remember a day when I was walking home from school and made that decision.  I was normally trudging along with my best friend, Maria, but on that particular day I was alone.  My walk took me from the "far end" of the small Iowa town I grew up in to the "business district" where we lived in the back of our jewelry store (my Dad was a watchmaker).  I was about half-way home, which means I was directly across the street from the courthouse. 

As a child, I'm not sure I even realized what a courthouse was all about in terms of the legal system,  Orange City was the county seat - which meant nothing to me.  Instead, when I looked at the courthouse, I was transported to the evening trips my Dad made to the top of the courthouse twice a year to change the clock back in time ("spring back"), or to "leap forward".  We kids were allowed to go with him...which meant a timid journey through a series of echoey large rooms with shiny floors, up a grand staircase (you had to choose whether to take the one on the left or on the right - either one worked), and then seeing Dad produce the key for a mysterious door which led to adventure. 

That next level had a "real" floor, but after that we began climbing toward the skies on cold metal ladders.  Dad always carefully closed a trap door after each level, because he said that if we were to fall, he didn't want us falling any further than necessary.  (The thought of that potential fall always made my heart beat a little faster!)  Subsequent levels had dirt floors, with planks of wood laid down to be our path if we needed to travel across the room.  Pretty soon it was "open air" - although I don't remember if that was by design or if it was because some windows were broken or if I simply never really knew.  But I do remember the pigeons, and their coo-ing, and the mess they left everywhere. 

When we reached the very top, there was the large "clock tower" clock in the center of the room, and it was linked to its four faces - north, south, east and west.  Apparently we weren't the only ones to have entered this inner sanctum over time, because we would examine the carved names and dates that others had left before us.  No matter how many times we climbed to the top, Dad never allowed any of us kids to carve our names.  That would have been vandalism, and no amount of adventure was enough to validate such activity. 

It usually didn't take Dad long to change the clock - although it obviously took longer when he had to move it 11 hours forward as opposed to just one.  Each hour he adjusted the clock forward, he would take hold of the gong with his hand and prevent it from ringing out the incorrect time to our home town - stretching out blissfully unaware all around us.  When we were finished, we would climb back down - again opening and closing each trap door along the way - and I always found it a relief but also a strange disappointment to re-emerge into the "real world" of the courthouse.  It was almost like adventuring into a parallel universe, or a place like Alice in Wonderland, and then popping back home.  Safe and sound - but with a secret experience shared only with Dad and my siblings.  I never thought of this until just now, but I don't recall my Mom going with us even once.  That seems funny to me now after all these years.  After all, she was the adventurer and risk-taker in our family - but I know she had her own adventures to live.

I have digressed mightily!  But those are some of the things I was thinking about as I walked by the courthouse on that fall day.  There were mounds of unraked leaves on the sidewalks, and I can still hear them in all their blazing beauty crunching noisily under my feet, even as I marveled at the intense blue overhead.  Could anything else be that blue?  I decided right then and there, with the intensity and impetuousness of youth, that autumn was my favorite season ever.

Others now care for the clock tower.  Others view carved names of history - not realizing that even though "Bev was here", she didn't leave evidence of the fact.  Sometimes, as I experience life, I get to leave a tangible legacy.  Sometimes not.  But I ask myself, just what is "tangible" anyway?

Anyway, maybe autumn is my favorite season because of its beauty, or its temperatures, or its fragrances of smoke and moisture hanging in the air.  Or maybe it's my favorite season because of other things buried in my subconscious, like that particular day in elementary school and the journey home.  Or maybe it remains my favorite because of new traditions, like traveling each October to Write About Jesus. 

Regardless, it's my favorite - and that will never change.

Signed,
Ryte Nou

Maybe you've already read this.  Regardless....

The Governor of North Carolina once complimented Thomas Edison on his creative genius.  "I am not a great inventor," countered Edison.  "But you have over 1,000 patents to your credit," the Governor stated.  "Yes, but about the only invention I can claim is absolutely original is the phonograph," Edison replied.  "I'm afraid I don't understand," the Governor remarked.  "Well," explained Edison, "I'm an awfully good sponge.  I absorb ideas wherever I can and put them to practical use.  Then I improve them until they become of some value.  My ideas are mostly the ideas of other people who didn't develop them themselves."  Edison was a lifelong learner.  He stayed open, hungry for knowledge, and teachable.  And to succeed, you must too.

Signed,
B. A. Spunj

I'd love to blog something profound this evening - something scintillatingly sweet to inspire a song. 

But alas, it's Homecoming week.   Aaarrrgghhh!!

I guess the bright side is that Homecoming is this weekend rather than next weekend, because I'll be in St. Louis for Write About Jesus next weekend and I don't know how my husband would survive the chaos here at home without me.  Plus, if I wasn't around to paint nails, style hair, and plan the after party, just think how much we'd have to pay other people to do that!

WAJ should be a piece of cake compared to all of that.  In fact, it might even qualify as a dessert buffet!

Signed,
Yumm

I already said this on my Facebook status, but it bears repeating.  "I used to think politics was boring."  I really did!

I remember my Dad paying attention to politics when I was in elementary school - something about Henry Kissinger comes to mind - and I pretty much blew it off.  It seemed like stuff for adults, and pretty dull.

Maybe this goes without saying, but it's definitely not boring anymore!  (And if you think it is, then I encourage you to do more than just dip your big hairy toe into the ocean of today's political climate.  How about going for a brisk swim to see what all the fuss is about?)

I used to hear - and preach to my kids - that it is our responsibility as citizens of the United States of America to register and to vote!  And it is.  But over the years I've learned that  our responsibility is much, much greater than that.  In fact, if all you do is simply go out and vote - without educating yourself beforehand - then your vote becomes the epitome of irresponsibility.  Even harmful. ....   It is absolutely crucial, especially as Christians, that we investigate both sides of issues and candidates.  Do not trust that yard sign you saw on the way to the grocery store, or the 30-second ad you saw on TV, or something you heard so-and-so say at the gym, or your gut instinct, or what your friends say, or what your parents say, or what seems fashionable, or what you've heard in the media.  Yes, these things will influence you.  But - you need to dig deeper.  You need to read blogs, and listen to talk radio, and ask questions, and research as much as you can - on both sides. 

That's what I'm preaching to my kids these days.  Responsible voting.

Yes, I know.  We're all busy.  But believe me, you won't just happen to stumble upon "truth" if you simply drift through the week.  Not full truth.  Not balanced truth.

So get ready to vote next month!  And I mean REALLY "get ready".  After all, as of October 3, 2008, we still live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

And freedom and bravery are anything but boring.

Signed,
B. Reese ponn Sibbel