I Love Language

Just a couple of snippets from the colorful language in my life:

The other day my mother offered me some Wendy's coupons. I said, "No thanks, I don't ever go to Wendy's. It's not any good."

She tried again: "June said the food's a lot better now because Arby's is out of there and they've got all new meat now."

"What has Arby's got to do with it?" I ask patiently. My mom, now 80, tends to cut and splice sentences like India does electrical wires.

"Well, Wendy's used to be in kahoots with Arby's and they were really dragging them down but now they got rid of Arby's and everything's better now."

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Ever since Steve Jobs died, my Mac's home page has displayed his picture resulting in my students seeing him projected on my Smartboard in between activities. I briefly explained who he was to my first graders when they asked, not thinking much at all would register.

Yesterday my computer shut down in the middle of an activity with the first graders, so I shut off the projector, explaining that my computer was broken.

Julio, my rockstar student who doesn't miss anything, said, "You no can get it fixed because the man he died?"

Still Singing

Today in church my seat gave me a limited view of the choir. From where I was sitting I could see only four women, two behind two in the loft, on the end. As I watched them sing, they became to me a portrait of beauty. Each has suffered and yet all four have risen above sometimes desperate circumstances to sing praises of joy to the God they love, and they appeared to me as women dearly loved by Someone, noticeably, evidently loved.

Widowed, divorced, abused, spurned, bereft, betrayed. These women have lived through various hells not of their own making and have experienced enough suffering to derail their faith, and yet there they were, singing to an invisible Person Who gives them visible joy.

They made me glad today.

They made me believe.

Thanks, ladies.