Friday, February 16, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
A good day with Jasper and George
I left my phone at Jasper’s house last night. But before that we had quite a day at our house.
Our friend George came for lunch, for salmon and rice, broccoli and corn on the cob. Margaret made a pineapple-orange “poke” cake, cool and creamy, covered with pecans. We talked about George’s past, present and future.
On April 29 last year Miles and Jasper were ringbearers in George’s wedding with Anne. After Jasper and I got up from our nap, I said, “You know, when you were a cowboy in George’s wedding, you were only three!”
He looked at me amazed. “I was just three? How could I be in a wedding when I was only three?” Well, you were. And you wore your Texas boots and your cowboy hat and marched up and down the aisle and everything.
Jasper wasn’t believing any of that. “I was just three!” Such a little boy. So much responsibility. And now look at him. He’s four! Growing up fast.
We read books today, and fixed food. We read How to Babysit a Grandpa. Margaret played games with him, but they didn’t get to Old Maid. We’re all set up for next time, the cards are in the holders they make for small kids’ hands. Instead of an “old maid,” this deck has a skunk.
We brought poke cake for part of our shared Thursday night dinner at Jasper’s house. When Andi makes a cake or cookies, she and the boys often take some of the goodies to a couple of neighbor houses. Sometimes they carry a sleeping bag in the car so they can give it to someone homeless on the street. We have $5 bills to share in the same way. When we can, we give the money to Jasper or Miles to pass out the window.
These offerings are for us, for the needy, and for the boys. We want to show them as much and often as we can what it means to “let the Lord choose our fast.” God chooses for us to fast from injustice:
Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.
That’s tricky on Valentine’s Day, but thankfully there are forty more days in Lent. Ash Wednesday rarely falls on February 14, as it did this year. It happened in 2018 and will again in 2029. But then we’ll be clear of the “strange overlap” until 2170.
By that time, Jasper will be 246 years old. That old geezer. Probably have a hard time making it up the aisle if they ask him to be in a wedding.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed. Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
 (Isaiah 58, Psalm 51, Amos 5, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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