Lent 1, February 26, 2012

My son and I saw the movie, The Grey a couple weeks ago.  It tells the story of a group of roughneck oil workers whose plane crashes in the remote Alaskan wilderness.  Liam Neeson plays the man who leads the group trying to help them survive the brutal conditions before their time runs out.  They find themselves surrounded by a pack of wolves who seems extremely territorial, unwelcoming and hungry and who have a terrifying growl.  The men battle injuries and attacks by the wolves, until a final tense standoff with the alpha male that the film leaves unresolved.

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Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2012

“Let Us Fix Our Eyes on Jesus”  (Part 1)

A beautiful woman is sitting to have her portrait taken.  Her concern?  That the photographer catch her best angle.  She doesn’t want to just sit and face the camera and have her picture taken like a mug shot.  So she seeks out a good photographer; one who will encourage subtle positions that will enhance her features.  He may say, “Look down, look to the side . . . head up, chin down.  Whatever it takes to give her a beautiful image . . .

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Epiphany 6, February 12, 2012

It’s been a while since I’ve run around on a school playground so I don’t know if this childhood epidemic still runs rampant, but when I was a kid girl germs were a serious health risk.  One little touch (fingers) and you were infected.  Judging by their screams and giggles, boy germs were equally contagious to the girls.  So we all avoided any cross-gender touching.

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Epiphany 5, February 5, 2012

I had a doctor’s checkup few weeks ago and one of the first questions the nurse asked me as she did her routine patient intake was “In the past 2 weeks have you felt down, depressed or hopeless?”  I didn’t need to think about it very long before I answered “no.”   But I wondered what the next step would have been if I had said “yes?”  I would probably have been evaluated further by the doctor when she came in order to determine if I could benefit from some medication or therapy to lift me out of it.

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