For God’s Sake Archive

It is interesting how habits creep their way in and out of our lives.

When I arrived in Navarre late in 2018, it was my habit to work out four to five days a week.

Helen Keller wrote, “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet.”

Blind for most of her life, Keller’s fame as an author and human rights activist shows that she chose not to wallow in self-pity. I must confess, I have wallowed in the past, only recently in fact.

It is a fact of life that not everything is as it appears; expectations are often dashed by disappointment.

What sparked this cheery thought? I had carefully studied a small basket of apples in my kitchen to select a perfect orb of crunchy deliciousness.

I was perusing some old photos of my parents from early in their marriage and found it strange to see them acting playfully like two young people in love.

I have no doubt that they loved one another, I just don’t recall seeing that playfulness growing up. Having brought nine children into this world, life was not easy for them.

Whenever Apple introduces a new iPhone, eager crowds line up in the predawn hours outside Apple stores hoping to be one of the first to get the latest.

My wife and I have never been in that crowd; we keep our phones until they will not work anymore.

I got my second “jab,” as the Brits call the COVID-19 vaccine, and the “jabber” was good. I did not feel a thing, nor did I experience any significant side effects.

Now, depending on whom you care to believe, I am either safe from the coronavirus … or I am not.

In the musical, “The Music Man,” a slick traveling salesman concocts a scheme to sell musical instruments to the town of River City.

He presents himself as a band leader and a boys’ marching band as a defense against the corruption of youth.

There are a few unique words and expressions in the Bible that have made their way into common English speech.

One of those words is “shibboleth,” which refers to a word, a mannerism, or a mode of dress that is peculiar to a group. It comes from an incident recorded in Judges 12, a conflict between two Israelite tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites.

Last month, I saw a meme that pictured a U.S. weather map where every state but ours was overlaid in colors of icy blue and purple showing frigid temperatures and heavy snow.

The entire state of Florida was overlaid in sunshine yellow and boasted temps in the low 80s north to south. That week in Navarre, our overnight temps dipped into the high 20s and the daytime temps barely crested 40 degrees.

If you want wisdom, you could scale a distant peak to consult with some wizened sage, or you can drive to Indiana and visit my father-in-law.

My wife and I have just returned from celebrating his 104th birthday with him.