About Atheism

 One of the most precious gifts that anyone can receive from God is a gift of choice. We can choose to acknowledge the triune God with praise, worship and thankfulness, or not. We can acknowledge that there is a God and choose not to proceed beyond belief in existence. We can do this because God gave us the gifts of reason, logic and choice.

I have never understood the beauty, majesty and importance of this until faced with a different issue: someone close to me has chosen atheism. Atheism is defined as the theory or belief that God does not exist.

In my world, believing that God does not exist is incredible. I have trouble comprehending how someone who has heard the truth about the living God could opt out; How does one opt out of love, acceptance and a salvation plan that had to have come from God because no man could have conceived anything that amazingly intricate?  It is beyond my understanding. But it is someone I love dearly, so I try, with the grace that only God offers, to understand.

Here is some of how it happened. My atheist said,
" I was told by my parents that there was a Santa Claus, but there isn't. I was told by my parents that there is an Easter Bunny and a Tooth Fairy; but there isn't. The same people told me there is a God. After all of the other lies, I don't believe it."

This is actually logical. How do parents go back to a child and say,
'Ok, so I did lie about the Easter Bunny and Santa and the Tooth Fairy. But the story about God is really real. I am not lying about that. I promise!'

Then, I hear the standard comments:
 "Why can't I see God? Why doesn't God appear before me and talk to me? Why is there so much suffering in the world if a caring, loving, God really exists? Why haven't I had a better life than I have if there is a God who loves me?"

I try, with my own religious theology, to answer these age-old questions the best I can to someone who does not believe, but faith based answers sound lame to those devoid of faith.

But still, I love. And I accept our differences the best that I can. And I try to give space and respect for our differences while loving. And I pray. What I don't do is try to stuff something down someone's throat who doesn't want to hear what I believe about a God who is very real in my life.

With God's help I come to understand that it is the role of the Holy Spirit to draw people to God; not mine. And I understand that trying to force someone into something that they don't believe might just interfere with the process that I believe that the Holy Spirit is engaged in as I write.  I believe that trying to force someone to accept something that they don't believe in is the equivalent of trying to steal the gift of choice that God has granted to all of us. Who am I to try to interfere with any of the gifts of God?

In the meantime, I just love and try to set an example. I try to be available to tell the wonderful story of the gospel of Christ that is being created and written in my life every moment of every day. I try to live up to the responsibility that accompanies this gospel. And I fail. Then I repent and try again.

And I trust that God's gift will bear fruit abundantly in the life of the atheist whom I love dearly.

Let it be so!

copyright 2013 by Kathy Robbins

Affording People a Little Dignity Goes a Long Way

Dignity is defined by the online Bing dictionary as self-respect; a proper sense of pride and self-respect.

I was talking to a friend of mine one day and used the word in our conversation and he commented that this was a word that he had not heard in years. Until he said that, I had not thought about it, but he is right. This word is missing from too many vocabularies in our current world.

I had heard this word many times when I worked in a foundry and our Human Resources Director explained to me many times that dignity is so important to a person’s self- worth and we owe it to one another to treat people in such a way that they are able to maintain their sense of dignity.  As a young supervisor, I listened closely to this timeless lesson. She went on to explain to me that even when we had to terminate an employee, we needed to do it in such a way that that person could walk out the door with his or her dignity intact. Otherwise, we would destroy a person’s sense of self-worth. We as supervisors were not in the business of destroying people.

 Indeed, a good supervisor will do the opposite. A good supervisor will build people up rather than tearing them down. He will champion the causes of employees and encourage them to aspire to excellent performance, and cheer their successes. From time to time, a supervisor may have to take disciplinary action, up and including termination. If termination is not in order, disciplinary action is a golden opportunity for coaching an employee to become more successful and the outcome can be positive. Sometimes, termination is necessary, but can be done in such a way that people are not destroyed in the process.

Outside of the workforce, the lesson is equally relevant. When dealing with neighbors, friends, enemies and even ex-spouses, we need to be gentle with one another. Otherwise, we are adding additional stress to the lives of others in a very difficult, complex world that just doesn’t have any more room for additional stress.

Some years ago, I attended a seminar entitled, “You are not your circumstances”, sponsored by the First United Methodist Church in Brewton, Alabama. I needed that seminar, because I was dealing with very difficult circumstances. I noticed a couple who were fine upstanding people in our community in the audience. I thought to myself, ‘I wonder why they are here; they don’t have any problems.’ I even expressed that to a friend when we were riding to the seminar. She responded, “You know Kathy, I just don’t think that we have any idea what one another is dealing with in their lives.”  Time and experience has taught me that she is right.

Sometimes dignity is all people have left with which to pick up pieces from terrible setbacks and move forward. When we destroy someone’s dignity, we have destroyed the man or woman. When people have lost their self-respect, they feel as if they have nothing left to lose. I don’t want to meet a person on the street who is in that mindset. Someone with nothing left to lose will stop at nothing. Hence we see a killer on the loose after killing three people in Los Angeles: Christopher Dorner.

I do not blame anyone for his actions but him. But I do realize that when someone feels that he has nothing left to lose, he is apt to take radical actions, which is what has occurred in this situation.

Back in Alabama, we had a sayin’: “You can kick a dog only so many times. Eventually, that dog will come back at you and bite you.” That is true. Affording a dog his dignity will prevent that.

It is high time that we as individuals, employers, and officials realize this and act accordingly.

Amen.

copyright 2013 by Kathy Robbins

The Human Out of Order Sign

Desperate for a job, I ran across a listing on Craigslist for workers at the University of Texas football games. I am an Auburn fan, but whenever Texas is not playing Auburn or Alabama, I root for them. It sounded like fun, so I recruited one of my friends, applied for the job and was immediately hired.

After driving through the Austin traffic, which currently ranks the second worst traffic for a city in the United States, by some studies, my friend paid $15.00 to park about a mile from the stadium. Then we had to hike to the stadium to stand in line and be let in at the appointed time. Then, we stood in line again, signed in, and were issued the ugliest neon yellow-green shirts that have ever been designed in the history of humanity. I think the reason they were this color was two-fold: 1. we could be seen from far away; and 2. No one in their right mind would want to steal them.  The promise was made that the only way that we could get paid was to sign out and return the shirts after the game. (I thought, don’t worry. Not even my youngest son would want to wear this shirt, bless his heart.)

After standing around for another hour or two, we were sectioned off into groups and moved to our respective sections where we stood around for another hour or two. Then, our group leaders assigned us to our post. My particular job was by the elevator on the tenth or so floor. I had a chair to sit in to tell people that they could not use the elevator. There you have it: I was being paid about $7.50 per hour to be a human, breathing out of order sign.  This was definitely a new experience. I kind of thought that a paper sign could have sufficed, but I wasn’t really being paid to think. I was just being paid to tell people that the elevator did not work. So, I told them. Some wanted to know why. I couldn’t tell them that. All I could tell them is what I had been told.  I had to listen to grumbling about it; I really felt sorry for some of the disabled people who obviously needed an elevator, but I could not help them other than to point them to the direction of a working elevator.

Like the paper version of me, there were people who ignored me. One was a coke vendor who stood there pushing the button that would not work. I knew it would not work, because they had turned the elevator off. It wasn’t out of order. They apparently did not want it to work. There was a rumor that they might turn it on after the game, but it wasn’t true.

The coke vendor finally figured out that I was telling the truth and left. And then there was the female police officer who just brushed past me, not giving me a chance to tell her that it didn’t work. I just let her push that button. I guess she thought her badge would make it work, but it didn’t. Then, she acknowledged me and asked what was wrong. I explained, and she demanded an explanation immediately. I told her the best one I had: it was turned off and I didn’t know why.

Texas won the football game and I was released from my elevator duty. I received my fifty or so dollars, and well the rest is history. I can scratch being an “Out of Order” sign off of my bucket list.

copyright 2013 by Kathy Robbins

Falling From Grace

Once upon a time, in a fictional small town somewhere in the Southern portion of the United States, a woman, who we will call Jan, encountered a former old schoolmate with whom she had attended the First Baptist Church. Jan had since moved to another small town in the same portion of the country, so she was delighted to see a familiar face in her old hometown that was steadily filling up with strangers.  Jan’s friend, who we will call Betty, asked Jan if she was still singing in the Baptist Church as she had done for years; or so Betty thought.

It seems that Jan wasn’t entirely comfortable at the Baptist church in her new community, so she tried different denominations and finally found a home at the First United Methodist Church. Well, all good Southern Baptists know that to leave the Baptist church for the Methodist church is nothing short of scandalous. So, as soon as Jan explained about her new denomination, Betty immediately replied, “Oh, you fell from grace!”

Jan and Betty both immediately erupted in laughter. Jan’s ten year old  daughter Yolanda, was standing there witnessing the conversation. Yolanda didn’t understand what “falling from grace” meant, but she was smart enough to know that it meant something bad. And she loved her mama. She didn’t want anybody insulting her. So she made a mean face at Betty. She didn’t laugh or smile and she squinted up her eyes, cut her head to the side and stared hard.

Jan quickly explained to Yolanda that Betty was just teasing and they were joking around, but that did little to appease Yolanda, who squinted even harder at Betty after briefly glancing at Jan. Of course, this only made Jan and Betty laugh harder, which irritated Yolanda even more.

Jan and Betty wrapped up their brief reunion and parted ways, which relieved Yolanda. She didn’t like Betty at all, and didn’t realize it at the time, but would remember this encounter for the rest of her life. To her, it was significant because of the emotions that were stirred in her. And it was a long time before she could allow herself to trust a Baptist again.

Of course, Jan had to tell everyone in the extended family about the encounter, which made everyone laugh, except Yolanda.

The next summer, Yolanda returned to her mom’s hometown to visit her grandparents. She loved coming here, because they always made her feel special. For the week that she was there, she was able to get all of the attention, like an only child. Because there was no one else but her to create commotion, she was subject to more scrutiny that she had at her own home. But feeling special far outdid the price that she would have to pay with exemplary behavior,

She was riding through town with her grandparents in the backseat of their big burgundy Oldsmobile that seemed to never lose that “new car” smell. She loved having the whole backseat to herself. She was quietly enjoying the ride. Her grandparents were talking quietly to themselves, when they just happened to pass the liquor store. Yolanda didn't know it was a liquor store. She barely even knew what liquor was. But she did know just a little bit.

She heard her grandmother exclaim, “Well, there is Bob Johnson, the head of our deacons of the First Baptist Church in line at the liquor store!” (EVERYbody knows that Southern Baptists aren’t supposed to drink.)(Disclaimer: This is a fictional story and is not meant to represent anyone who may be named Bob Johnson, who happens to be the head deacon at a First Baptist Church in any small town in the southeastern portion of the United States. Any similarity in names to any person, living or dead who may be named Bob Johnson, who is the head deacon at a First Baptist Church in any small town in the southeastern portion of the United States, is purely coincidental; especially if the living or dead real Bob Johnson, who is the head deacon at a First Baptist Church in any small town in the southeastern portion of the United States happens to frequent the local liquor store. Thank you)

As soon as her grandmother pointed out that the head deacon at her church was in the line at the liquor store, Yolanda was gripped with a feeling that she had never had before. She didn’t know what to do. She just had to do something! So, before she could stop herself, she exclaimed,

"Oh, well he fell from grace!"

She still didn’t know what it meant, but judging from her grandparent’s laughter, she knew that maybe she had hit the nail right on that Baptist head. And then, she secretly thought, ‘now, take that you Baptists!’

From that point on, in her own little mind, she always felt that she had somehow vindicated her mother.

And they all lived happily ever after.




copyright 2013 by Kathy Robbins

'Twas the Week After Christmas By: Rev. Tom Butts

AN ENCOURAGING WORD, written for publication in the Monroe Journal, December 27, 2012, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, First United Methodist Church, Monroeville, Alabama.

'TWAS THE WEEK AFTER CHRISTMAS

Now that the "Big Day" is over and we are trying to get back to normal, whatever that may be, perhaps we should try to figure out how to keep some of Christmas in our lives. People tend to feel "let down" after such an intense celebration.  It takes intentional effort to keep the spirit of Christmas alive when it is over. So many things mitigate against it.  Several years ago Howard Thurman wrote a free-verse poem about taking Christmas beyond December 25th.

"When the song of the angel is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home. When the shepherds are back with their flocks;

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people, to make music in the heart..."

Most of the baubles we got or gave are soon gone, forgotten or stored out of sight in the attic. What we actually keep from the season are the intangibles. There is the spirit of excited joy we experienced/shared with the children who were too young and innocent to worry about mundane things like paying off credit cards and balancing the budget. There remains the joy of seeing the older children come home from college or distant work places, and seeing how they have grown and changed (hopefully for the better). There is the lingering memory of having extended members of our family of origin get together to swap grandiose tales of how things were when they were growing up. For many years my family of origin got together at the old home place where we grew up during the depression. We would celebrate the fact that we were all still alive and of sound mind (relatively speaking). We would recite embellished and polished gems of oral tradition about the good old days which were so hard -- and so good. But times change. Death and distance have left my family of origin, and perhaps yours, with only the memories we struggle to keep.

Christmas is not a happy time for everyone. There are people who, for unspoken reasons, are glad that Christmas is over. They are weary of pretending to be happy when deep down they are sad. They have felt trapped by the common expectations of the season and the expectations of others, and have feigned as best they could a "holiday spirit". We all know someone for whom this was the first Christmas after some significant loss such as death, divorce or one of the many other ways you can lose someone or something. There are those whose historical losses, failures and feelings of brokenness float to the surface at Christmas time, and they find themselves reliving some of the worst experiences of their past. And, then there are also some whose memories of "Christmases past" are just not happy. Be gentle and careful when you relate to people who morph into modern-day Scrooges. There are more of them than you think, and the reasons for their seasonal brittleness may be more complex than you can imagine.

This week between Christmas and the beginning of a new year is a good time to remember resolutions and promises made to ourselves, God, and other people. Did you keep the promises, or will you need to try again? Let me tell you a story of someone who kept his promise.

It was the day after Christmas at a church in San Francisco. As the pastor of the church was looking at the Nativity scene in the narthex and getting ready to store it until the next year, he noticed that the baby Jesus figure was missing from the manger. He went outside and saw a little boy pulling a red wagon down the street. The baby Jesus figure was in the red wagon. He walked up to the child and asked, "Son, where did you get that baby Jesus?” The little boy said, "I got him from the church." "Why did you take him?", the pastor asked. The little boy replied, "Well about a week before Christmas I prayed and told Jesus that if he would bring me a red wagon for Christmas, I would give him a ride!”

May we all be so faithful to our promises -- each in our own way.

copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

Poetry: A Change of Pace

When I was on writing scholarship in college, I was compelled to take a creative writing class on poetry. As you will soon see, poetry was not really my cup of tea. But here are two of the poems that I wrote for that class.

This first one, I wrote at the age of eighteen. Not much has changed since then….

Oppression

I can not be held

By words

By chains

By boundaries

Let me free

To do as I must,

 And I will burst forth

With

Freedom and Happiness…

This was an assignment to write a poem with a particular rhyme scheme. The professor said that it could be a nonsense poem, but she just wanted the particular rhyme scheme. Since my best attribute is nonsense, this is what I wrote:

Piggily Wiggily 

Piggily Wiggily

Vladimir Nabokov

Characteristically selling his bod.

So continentally Mediterranean,

His creativity gets him the nod.

The Professor liked that one. Ha! (My apologies to Mr. Nabokov)

And last of all, the unfinished one:

Autumn

Autumn's chilly evening,

Shrouded peacefulness,

Slow and quick painful sting,

Traitor nonetheless

I will finish this one soon. Obviously, I still have miles to go before I sleep....

copyright 2013 by Kathy Robbins

A Messy Situation

Jackie picked up the phone to hear from her oldest friend, Rosa.

“What’s up?” Jackie asked.

“Well, I have a problem, and I need your advice.” Rosa answered.

“Sure. Lay it on me.”

“ Well, you know I have been friends with Delores since high school and you know she is married to Ron. Well, I just found out that Ron is dating Jeannie and now Jeannie is pregnant with his baby. What I am wanting to know, is should I tell Delores, or should I just keep out of it? I mean, I don’t want to break her heart with the news, but I don’t want her to not know something that she should know, and I don’t want her to find out that I knew and never told her. Oh, I just don’t know what to do. What do you think?”

Jackie said,” Boy, when you said you had a problem, you were serious. I was hoping that you just wanted to know if you should wear the brown sweater or the black one. How do you know that he is dating Jeannie and how do you know she is pregnant and how do you know that he is the father?”

“You know, I have seen Ron and Jeannie together several times, and have been hearing from the guys at work that he is dating her. This has been going on for a while. Last night, I found out from Peggy Sue that she is pregnant, and it is a sure thing. It is definitely Ron’s baby. And Delores is just walking around without a clue. I feel so bad for her!”

“Ok. If you are sure that Ron is really seeing this girl and you are sure that she is pregnant with his baby, how do you know Delores doesn’t know? I mean really, a lot of times wives know more about what their husbands are doing than people realize. Sure, they never admit it to anyone else. But they know.”

“No, Jackie. I really don’t think that she does know. I am telling you. I talk to her and I can tell she doesn’t really have a clue. You know, she and I have been close over the years. I really don’t know what to do. My mom has always said ‘Don’t tell someone because they won’t get mad at the cheating spouse. They will get mad at you for telling them.’”

“Well, I wouldn’t want someone to tell me. I would probably be very upset, embarrassed and annoyed. The way I would look at it, if it were my husband, I would not want one of my closest friends to tell me. I would want to find out on my own. It would save me at least some embarrassment that way. I mean, who would want to have to hear it from their best friend? She will already be humiliated enough without that adding to the humiliation.”

“You wouldn’t want someone to tell you Jackie? Really? Because I would want you to tell me!”

“ No way, Rosa, I wouldn’t want to hear it from my bestie. I wouldn’t want to tell you either. That is a horrible situation. I still say that Delores may know more than you think. She may know about the affair and not talking about it because she is in denial or she silently accepts it. You just never know what people have worked out between each other when they are married.”

“Oh yeah, you can bet I would want you to tell me so that I wouldn’t waste any time divorcing that sorry sucker!” Rosa replied.

“I can’t tell you what Delores wants, but I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that I wouldn’t want you to tell me, if it were me in that situation.”

“Wow. OK. I guess I won’t tell her then. But I have a feeling that a divorce is on the horizon, and I just hate to see what Delores is about to be put through.”

2 weeks later

“Hello?” Rosa says as she answers the phone.

“Hey Rosa, it’s Jackie. Guess who is pregnant?” Jackie asks.

“Linda,” replies Rosa.

“Yeah,” says Jackie. It seems that Fred saw fit to blab it to me at work. He thought I knew already. He thought my sweet husband Sam had already left me, since he has a baby on the way with his girlfriend. I promise you, I never saw this coming.”

“I am so sorry, Jackie. I had heard it. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know if you would just get mad at me, or if you would want me to tell you. That is why I made up that whole story about Delores, Jeannie and Ron. I had to see what you wanted me to do. I am so sorry….”



copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

Just a Little Gift

I had the honor of attending Christmas Eve candlelight service on Monday night at my church, The Journey UMC. Our pastor informed us that we could partake in a church tradition, after the service. The church made gift or goody bags available to us to take out into the world. He suggested that we drop them off with people who were at work still at the grocery stores or drug stores or where ever we could find that someone was not able to go to a candlelight service on Christmas Eve.

He suggested that we give them a bag and tell the person that this is from The Journey UMC and that we just want you to know that we wish you a Merry Christmas and wanted to pass to you the peace of Christ on this Christmas Eve. (Or something like that.)

I took three of these bags. I had to go shopping after the service, so I went to Walmart and bought groceries. I gave the first bag to the cashier who waited on me. She took it and thanked me, set it down and went back to work.

As I was walking out, the store manager was standing just outside the door to tell people approaching the door that they would be closing in just 5 minutes. I gave one of the bags to him, but he was hesitant to take it. He stood there with his arms folded, looking at me.
 Finally, he said, “You meant to tell me that this is free?”
 I said, “Yes, it is free. It is from my church. We wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.” He took it from me.

Then, when I got to my car, a worker stood beside my buggy and told me he would take my buggy for me as soon as I was finished with it. I extended a bag to him.
 He said, “Oh no, ma’am. I am sorry. We are not allowed to accept things from anyone.” 

I said, “Really? Because I just gave one to your manager and he accepted it. So you take it too. It is from my church and we want you to have a Merry Christmas.” 
He said, “My manager took one?” 
I said, “Yes, he did. And you take one too. If it makes you feel more comfortable, don’t tell anyone, but you take this and have a Merry Christmas.”

Finally, he accepted the bag and took the buggy too.

I never knew that giving something to someone would be so hard. But, I guess that maybe God feels the same way sometimes.

copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

Who Started This Christmas Business

AN ENCOURAGING WORD written for publication in the Monroe Journal, December 13, 2012, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, First United Methodist Church, Monroeville, Alabama

 

The Christmas season is a cheerful time for most people, but there are frustrations. Even people who tend to keep life manageable occasionally encounter some unsettling and frustrating experiences in the hustle and bustle of the season.

There are people for whom Christmas provokes deep feelings of sadness. It is a time for remembering, and not all our Christmas memories are happy. For some it is the first Christmas after a sad experience -- death of a loved one, a divorce, etc. When you are expected to look and act happy, but you are sad, it is easy to forget the reason for the season, and pray it will soon be over.

I could offer tons of conventional advice on how to keep meaning in the season. I am a professional at offering conventional advice about many things, but after more than a half-hundred years in an advisory capacity, I have come to the conclusion that most people already know more conventional wisdom than they care to use, and that most people for whom Christmas is an unhappy time can find someone to help them through, if they are interested in help. But let's face it, there are people who actually enjoy being unhappy. Their lives and their relationships are defined by their negative view of life. Don't try to cure their condition. You will end up being caught up in it. Just avoid them, if you can.

When money is limited and demands (or perceived demands) are unlimited, it is frustrating. When you feel obligated to match gift for gift. dinner for dinner, Christmas card for Christmas card -- when you feel compelled to attend and give so many parties, when you focus on the business of Christmas, it is easy to lose sight of the heart of Christmas. And if we are not careful the glitter, the gifts, the food, the parties, and the over-the-top commercialization of Christmas will leave us physically tired, spiritually empty, emotionally over-spent, and perhaps financially broke. It is a sad critique of the holiday set aside to honor one who taught us of love, peace, and kindness.

When you become stressed out humor helps, and there is always humor to be found as children begin to sense some suspicious inconsistancies in the Santa Claus myth. One child climbed up on the lap of Santa Claus at a department store and shared his wish list. Later that day, in another store, there was Santa again, who when he saw this child said, "Ho, ho, ho, what would you like for Christmas this year?" With a puzzled and suspicious look on his face the child admonished Santa, "You really need to write these things down!" When my grand neice, Callie, was about 8 years old her parents gave in to her barrage of suspicious questions and confessed to her the truth about Santa Claus. This bright and perceptive little girl then asked her parents: "What else have you been lying to me about?" The weak effort to continue the myth beyond credulity can be humorous. A father said to his young daughter, "Look at all the presents Santa left for you!", to which the child replied, "Dad, this looks like your handwriting". Dad said, "Well, I let him borrow my pen". Daughter pushed on, "That wouldn't change his handwriting". "Well" said Dad "we also had a couple of glasses of wine together" Look for the humor as well as the holiness in Christmas.

There was a mother who was Christmas shopping with her two young children. After three hours of looking at row after row of toys and hearing them ask for everything they saw on those shelves, she was feeling the overwhelming pressure that so many feel during the holiday season. She was relieved when she finally made it to the elevator.

When the elevator doors opened there was already a crowd in the car. Determined to get out of the department store as soon as possible, she pushed her way into the crowded car, dragging her two kids and her packages with her. When the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore. She blurted out in an angry voice, "Whoever started this whole Christmas business should be found, strung up and shot!"

From the back of the elevator a quiet and calm voice responded, "Don't worry, we have already crucified him".

The rest of the trip down the elevator was so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. Hmmmmmm

copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

Last Words

She was my best laughing buddy. Billie Ann and I had met while passing one another on the breezeway at Alco Baptist Church, dropping off our respective children at daycare. We started out saying Hello to one another. Then, it was short conversations as we waited for our children to gather their things. After a while, it turned into longer conversations. Over time, a friendship developed.

She worked for a contractor and I worked at a foundry. We discussed our jobs, kids and exes. And we laughed at anything and everything.

She went through some hard times and so did I. We were both laid off from our jobs. But we still laughed. We started hanging out at each other’s houses, met each other’s families, shared meals and kept laughing.

She was a little heavy and decided to have bariatric surgery to lose weight. I cheered her on. She had to have a whole battery of tests run beforehand. They x-rayed her whole body, I think. She was winded easily, but I always figured that was because of her weight. 

When she moved out of her house, I helped her move. Our children played together, fought with each other and went to each other’s Birthday parties. We all sometimes attended church together.  We were like peas and carrots.

I remember her saying that she was feeling kind of spooky about praying recently because everything that she prayed for was coming to pass. She said that it was the first time in her life that this had happened.

The day of Billie Ann’s surgery came and she did well. She stayed in the hospital a couple of days and then went home to her Aunt’s to recover. The boys and I visited her there, and other than being tired, she seemed well and was losing weight. The plan was for her to lose a certain amount of weight, and then find a new job.

I took her for return appointments and to get a B-12 shot for energy. They gave me a B-12 shot too. She started feeling really bad and they put her back in the hospital. She remained winded and had some other complications that really puzzled the doctors. I got my ex to watch the boys and went to the hospital to visit her and laughed with her. We hoped they would find the problem soon.

The next day, I found out that she was in ICU. The doctors knew that she was getting worse, but still couldn't pinpoint the cause of the problem. Again, I visited and we talked and laughed together. I didn’t know what to do to help her. I wasn't a doctor. But they say that laughter is the best medicine, so I could definitely help with that. We spoke about our plans when she was released from the hospital. We laughed some more, I fed her some ice chips, which is all they would let her eat and started towards the door to go home.

This is the part in which I have to talk about the fact that I am not a mushy person and don’t go around telling people that I love them all of the time. Really, I don’t. Obviously, if I didn't like someone, I wouldn't be around them. I count my mere presence as affirmation. I expect for others to do the same. But, for some reason, something told me to tell Billy Ann that I loved her. It was like a little voice that I didn't hear often. But I obeyed. I turned around and said, “I love you”.

I went home and started to go and visit her the next day. Again, that little voice spoke to me instructing me this time to put my own family first, so I took my son to his soccer game instead. As I was turning in to the field, I thought of John 14:

 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

This was a comforting scripture to me that had been recited by my grandmother with my mother when she was dying. I made a mental note to read it to Billy Ann the next time I visited her.

But it was not to be. See, Billy Ann passed away at the same time that the scripture was brought to my remembrance. Her lung collapsed, and the doctors did emergency exploratory surgery to determine the cause. That was when they found a massive, malignant tumor wrapped around her heart and lungs. They said it was inoperable and that she would die. And she did just a few hours later. I always wondered how they didn't know about the tumor with all of the tests that they ran before her initial surgery. And, I understood why she had been so winded all of that time. It wasn't because of her weight alone, but because she was fighting against a tumor that she didn't know she had.

One thing I was glad about was that my final words to her were “I love you”. I had no regrets about our friendship; none about words not said. When we think about what we are saying to people, we need consider whether it will be our last time to speak to them. Those moments happen when we least expect them.

copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

18 Wheeler Burial

This story is a little hard to follow, so just be patient with me. I didn't know of a better way to tell it.

Jim died in the early 70’s, and was buried in a family cemetery in central Alabama. Ruth, his widow remarried her widowed boss years later. Soon after the nuptials were exchanged, her family became concerned about the manner in which her new husband treated her. He wasn't very considerate. It was actually just a conflict. They were in love with the same person: him.

It probably wasn’t his fault. After all, he didn’t even have a real name. He had initials. His name was DA. I swear, it is the truth. Ok, the initials may have been changed to protect innocent people in this family’s story, but otherwise it is all the truth. The D and the A didn’t stand for anything, (well not officially); that was truly his name. When I was little, I knew of a little boy named Ronald Bryan who was called RG. That made sense. But this man’s name was DA. What could one expect of someone who didn’t have a real name? He was probably bullied as a child because of it.

So, DA, being the insensitive individual that he was, bless his heart, outlived Ruth and had her laid to eternal rest in a mausoleum in an affluent city in Florida, right next to his first wife, Mary. Ruth’s family was incensed and privately wondered among themselves if he got a discount for having his own row of wives in the mausoleum-kind of a quantity discount, if you will. Ahem.

Ruth’s two sons would have preferred that their mother be buried next to their father in Alabama, but DA forgot to ask them. So their opinion was a moot point; well, sort of.  Did I say “eternal rest” earlier? Sorry, maybe I should have said “rest stop”.

DA remarried not long after he sent Ruth to her rest stop at the mausoleum. But he outlived this wife too. I am sure she was laid to rest on his row at the same cemetery, but I didn’t check. He also outlived one of Ruth’s sons. The other son, Scott, contracted cancer and his life appeared to be coming to a close.  Scott’s niece Abby and her family came for a visit. While in town, she phoned DA, to the shock and surprise of her family. She explained that he had been her step-grandfather, so she was curious about him. Two weeks, later, DA died unexpectedly. (As unexpectedly as a 95 year old man can die.) Her very insensitive family, bless their hearts, laughed and hollered accusing Abby of somehow causing his death with her phone call.

Scott almost jumped for joy. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Scott had been waiting for DA’s death. He had been determined to outlive him even if only for 5 minutes. With DA dead, Scott was now legally his mother’s next of kin. As her rightful, legal next of kin, he decided to have her transferred off of the DA row at the mausoleum to the family burial cemetery in Alabama. She would be buried next to her first husband and Scott’s dad.

Abby heard about this and scrunched up her face. She thought the whole thing was a little creepy. She made a mental note in her head to go see the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers ”. Abby thought that the dead should be left to rest in their place and not disturbed.

Scott seemed to be in remission and showed signs of strengthened health as he began to planning for her body to be transferred. He quickly discovered that it would be a lot more expensive to have her moved than he thought. He stewed about this problem for a while, and finally arrived at a solution.

Scott’s son Timmy was a brawny man who drove eighteen wheelers for a living. He drove from Miami northward to all kinds of destinations in the Northern U.S. Scott would have Timmy to pick up a load in Miami, then go to the city in Florida that had the cemetery where his mother was, pick her up and put her casket on the back of the trailer. With the truck loaded with his cargo and grandma, Timmy would drive Granny to Alabama and drop her off at her final resting place (hopefully) and be buried next to Scott’s dad.

Pause….

Ummm, yeah. This was really happening. 

Abby heard about these plans and was mortified. Oh. My. God. Tell me this isn’t happening; not anywhere in the world; not in this country; in my family; Oh My. God. Abby thought. “No!!! Tell me this is not going to happen!” she said.  “Please tell me, tell me that ya’ll are not going to move my Granny Ruth, my DEAD Granny Ruth, from her resting place in Florida to a grave in Alabama, on the back of an eighteen wheeler?! Please tell me that Timmy will not be tooling all over Florida and Alabama with Granny Ruth in the back of his truck? ” Abby didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry. This had to be the most preposterous, redneck thing that had ever occurred in her life, much less than in her family. This was even worse than the stories about Uncle Billy roasting road kill on the boy’s weekend of camping years ago with his son-in-law and Abby’s Dad.

A visual thinker, Abby’s imagination began churning. Timmy is driving along, with a load of widgets in his eighteen wheeler, Grannys casket perched on top of a box of the widgets on the tail end of the truck. On the way to Detroit, Michigan, Timmy will just drop her dead butt in Alabama. But, two hours before he arrives at the cemetery in Alabama, a car pulls out in front of him. He has to slam on brakes to keep from running completely over the car. His truck subsequently jack knives, causing the load to shift. The load slams against the back door, breaks the bars holding the doors closed. Then the broken doors swing open, Granny’s casket becomes airborne, at which point Granny Ruth’s body is extricated from the casket, and flies solo, landing on the hood of some poor soul’s car. . The police would be called, along with the fire truck and ambulance. Traffic would be stopped. The paramedics would go to the body on the hood of the car and try to revive a woman who had been dead for over sixteen years, not to mention embalmed. At some point they would realize that there was something bad wrong, and the whole family would be featured on CNN News. People would be interviewed. The media would find a toothless, obese woman to say, “Yeah, I seen it all! At first, I thought it was a UFO coming at us! Then, I realized, it was a woman and a casket. Then I walked over to look at her and realized somethin’ wasn’t right ‘tall. And I says to my husband, ‘Floyd, somthin’ ain’t rite here!’” Talk about a nightmare! This whole thing was crazy. Indeed, this was one of the few times that Abby was actually comforted by the fact that her father was dead; at least he wasn’t here to witness this. She also secretly decided that if this scenario did play out anywhere remotely like her imagination pictured, she would change her last name from Watson to Smith.

Abby was invited to a short prayerful ceremony at the destination cemetery, which she respectfully declined on the grounds that if Granny Ruth was unhappy with the whole disturbance and her ride on the back of the truck, she would not be implicated and later haunted.

Luckily, the body was transferred without incident and Scott seemed quite pleased with himself. (Thanks be to God. Abby shuttered at the thought of what Act II might involve if Scott were not satisfied).  Abby didn’t go within 100 miles of the ceremony and there was no involvement with CNN for anyone in the family. Scott said that was the last thing that he was waiting to accomplish in this lifetime and true to his word, died within six months. He was buried in the same cemetery in Alabama. And as of this writing, everyone is still where they were buried.

Thanks be to God and Amen.

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Thanksgiving Challenge and Joy Dare:

Today, I am thankful for:
355. Warm covers
356. The new covenant
357. Books
358. Decorated Christmas tree
359. My health




copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

The Last Lick; Kathy Style

Yesterday, I published an article written by Rev. Tom Butts entitled “The Last Lick”. It reminded me of a personal story of my own on this subject.

I was raised in a highly verbal family, led by two very intelligent quick-witted parents. So, it is really no mystery that my siblings and I were also well-versed in quick witted replies. Lively conversations were quite common, with zingers flying fast and furious through the air.

 I think that my mom and I were the worst.

 “You two just go at each other sideways,” my father said one day. And on another occasion, she and I were going at it, and he announced that he was leaving for work. We continued with our debate, (which of course, is a polite word for argument), without slowing down to bid him adieu. He repeated this statement two or three times to no response from us, when he finally said, “Well, aren't ya’ll going to tell me to be careful?!” We  stopped arguing, I mean debating, looked at him and burst out laughing. We chimed in telling him to be careful and enjoy his night. Satisfied that he had stopped the lively exchange and gotten some attention for himself, he departed. The altercation was over. Well, it is hard to be mad when you are laughing.

Home wasn't the only place that we learned our quick verbal self-defense skills. School was another place that this art was honed. “Cut down wars” were a favorite past-time at lunch and before and after school. We were good at them, and it wasn't unusual for our teachers to jump in, or even start them. “You people have diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain!” one teacher liked to tell us. We were used to it, so we would laugh with her. Recently forgetting that everybody had not had Mrs. Carden’s seventh grade English class with me, I said that about someone else recently and he was highly offended. I really didn't mean to insult him terribly; I was just joking around with him like Mrs. Carden used to do with us. Oops!

I was always quick to pop back at someone who would try to insult me and my personal motto was to get them worse than they had gotten me. Such was the case one evening at work when I worked in a foundry. A number of new supervisors had been hired in anticipation of opening a new plant. Then, the bottom dropped out of the economy, orders were scaled back significantly and we were unable to open the new plant and had to cut back on production at the existing plant. The obvious result was that supervisors would have to be laid off. ( Which is a polite word for fired).  We knew that some of us would get the proverbial ax  and were discussing which ones of us it would be. Just for the sake of luck, I made the comment that it might be me. (If I didn't think it would be me, then Murphy’s law says that it probably would; but as long as I could admit my vulnerability, then maybe it wouldn't be me. That was my thinking anyway.) Then, one particular supervisor, whose name I won’t divulge said, “No, just because we don’t like you doesn't mean we can all vote to get rid of you!” I had a quick comeback to that very rude statement, but was unable to deliver it, because he hurriedly walked off. Not to be outdone, I waited about half an hour to give him time to forget, and then approached him. I said, “ I might be the one nobody likes, but at least I’m not the one on my third marriage!.

Feeling superior, I looked at him and saw that he had a look on his face that looked like I had just slapped him. I thought he was going to cry. Immediately feeling terribly, I realized that I had indeed crossed a line that I shouldn't have. He didn't say a word. He had no comeback for that, but actually I felt so bad and was so sorry that I had said it. I regretted saying something so cruel.

Actually, what I didn't know, but later found out, was that he was on his third marriage, but his current wife was about to leave him. And not only was he divorced twice, but both times, his wives had left him and filed for divorce. This story seems so horrible to me now, that it is actually hard for me to write.

And I had never been married at the time; no one can give parenting advice like the person who has never been a parent and no one can give marital advice like the one who has never been married. Once I got married, like 75% of marriages today, it too ended in divorce. Having this experience now has taught me not to throw stones at others.

He had hurt me with his cruel words, but I had hurt him much worse, and no claim to winning an argument was worth that. I decided then to never say anything like that to anyone again, even if it meant that I would lose an argument, or look dumb or stupid or any of those things. There are some things that mean more in the long run. I have held to that decision for the most part. There are of course some exceptions, but leaving people with their dignity means more than being one-up on someone.

I realized too, that the words not said are words that don’t have to be retracted. My newer motto is “ I've never had to apologize for something I didn't say.” And that holds true. Whether it is physical or verbal, Rev. Butts is right. Sometimes, it is just better to let the other person have the last lick.

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Thanksgiving Challenge and Joy Dare

Today, I am thankful for:

347. The cold weather
348. Successful surgery for a friend
349. The amazing recovery of Joyce Boelsche
350. Psalm 91.
351. Love
352. 24-hour grocery stores.
353. The birth of healthy babies.
354. My readers

opyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins