Faith and Flu

Flu season was full speed.  Lots of it was "going around".  Sunday noon came, I was shaking hands at the door, when a man walked up to me, grabbed my hand.  His other hand gripped my shoulder as he stepped close.

"Preacher, I'm just barely going, but this flu isn't keeping me at home, no sir!"

I wondered whether or not to thank him.  But it does raise a rather self-answering question:  "When IS it good to stay home from worship?"

Sometimes loving our neighbor means keeping our distance, rather than complicating life's issues.  And that's always a hard one, isn't it?  Not so much hard to answer when the issue is clear, but hard to calculate when we seriously do try to love our neighbor.

Jesus said we are to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.  That has to be one of the biggest challenges He ever laid out!

Zoey and the Sweet Peas

Zoey is a chocolate lab. A pound puppy with no papers, she's still a chocolate lab. Loves the water! On her last lake adventure, she even swam until she was exhausted and had to be rescued.

She loves sweet peas, and lives in an area where they are a fine spring crop. She loves the peas. She loves the leaves. She loves the vine. There wasn't anything left. Nothing.

Zoey celebrates every day, every single one. I don't think she knows she doesn't have papers.

I like Zoey. Zoey loves life.

And I like people who have something of Zoey in them. They love life. They experience it.

A great choral conductor told us: "When you sing, I don't want to hear ink-on-paper! I want to hear the music move!"

Jesus said the gift was life abundant. Overflowing. Not a matter of proper credentials and labels, but moving, flowing, loving, caring, celebrating, living.

Zoey got the memo on that one. I know lots of people with that kind of joy. They make my heart sing.