Maybe in the future we will realize what actions we should have taken.

My partner and I haven’t invited friends over since February. We haven’t been to a bar or a theatre in almost a year, and the last time we were at church was in March.

Our church opened a couple of months ago, but reservations are required. Seating is limited, and everybody is required to wear a mask. People are escorted to and from their seats, and socializing is discouraged.

I’m still not attending, and don’t know when I will. Currently, I’m happy to watch services live-streamed on TV.

Some businesses are booming

I don’t know what the rest of the country looks like, but despite our semi-lockdown and despite a muted church experience, things in the South are bustling. …

Sharing memories from the past and glimpses of a teenager’s heart

If you’re a writer who always wanted to write, you’ve probably been writing a long time. Maybe you scribbled stories as a child or wrote poetry as a teenager.

I had forgotten how often I turned to poetry when I was young, but stumbling across an old binder of poems while cleaning out the basement precipitated a flood of memories.

As a lonely 13-year-old, poetry transported me to a different place. I soaked it up as nourishment for the soul and strength for the spirit.

I read Wordsworth, Longfellow and Dickinson from the time I could read, and it wasn’t long before I was scribbling my own rhymes. …

Take your clients for granted and expect the money to roll in

My sister in law recently sold her business, but she wouldn’t have sold it if she had known what would happen next.

She had started the financial planning and investment company as a young woman, when she was a single mother who had just been laid off from her job.

In those early years, she studied for state certification exams, scrambled for clients, and worked night and day.

One week she came to visit me in Atlanta because of a business course she was taking. She stayed up late into the night trying to learn the material and pass the exams, and turned down wine with dinner because, as she said, “I need to study instead of losing my resolve.” …

“There’s no case that can be made biblically for a woman preacher. Period, paragraph, end of discussion.” John MacArthur

My partner and I were listening to a Joyce Meyer sermon on TV last Sunday, since we’re not attending in-person church during the pandemic. We enjoy her upbeat messages and the way she emphasizes service and living positively.

In case you haven’t heard of her, Joyce Meyer’s father sexually abused her for years, she endured an abusive marriage before getting divorced, and now leads a world-wide ministry that sends doctors and dentists to remote areas of the world.

She talks a lot about forgiveness, trusting God and living your best life, along with encouraging people to use their resources to help end human trafficking, hunger, and poverty. …

Don’t throw your child over a fence, and other rules you might not know

The media is so full of stories about politics, elections and coronavirus that I decided to cast around for news that didn’t concern these hot button topics.

And this is what I found:

An elementary school in France has banned late-arriving parents from hurling their kids over its closed gate when dropping them off.

You heard me right! Parents are hurling their kids over a fence.

And it isn’t just a little fence. According to the principal, it’s a six-footer.

Maybe you’re different, but I couldn’t lift a child gently and gracefully over a six-foot fence. I would have to sling the child with all the force I could muster, like flinging a cat by its tail, and even with that effort the child would likely land smack into it. …

A Poem

Storm winds topple trees in sodden soil,
Heavy in the aftermath
of last night’s terror,
Winds that lashed illusions of security
to shreds.

Sunlight shining light on night time turmoil,
Mocking in serenity.
Chainsaws shrill and scream, a strident song
To counter night’s chaotic concert,
Wind and rain and thunder, timeless tune
Of nature laughing.

Hopping in my little boat,
I push away from noisy shore
And row in silky silence, solitude,
Dip and splash of oar
My soothing song.

Logs and limbs, echoes of night’s turmoil,
Drift and bob in currents soft and slow,
My little boat cuts through it all,
I think she rides the lake with glee. …

Bebe’s Biography

Did I hear him right? The newspaper publisher sitting across from me was trying to lure me away from my current job. “I’d like you to come and work for me,” he said.

I was the editor of a small-town weekly newspaper in the heart of a North Carolina town that you would miss if you blinked your eyes passing through. The publisher of a competing paper was offering me a job.

The reason?

I had exposed a corruption scheme that got the police chief fired, and I had interviewed the owner of a new massage parlor on the outskirts of town. I don’t know which story was the bigger draw. Featured with the massage parlor story was a photo I had snapped of the curvy woman in charge, perched on an exercise bike, smiling sexily. …

Satire/Humor

Both Liberals and Conservatives oppose turn signal mandate

President-elect Joe Biden announced yesterday that his first executive order will be a nationwide turn signal mandate.

“My priority is the safety and health of the American citizens, and we have to get this traffic thing under control,” Biden said. “The mandate won’t be forever; just until we as a nation get into the habit of using turn signals.”

People on both sides of the political divide were quick to take offense.

“I won’t let the government tell me what to do. My car is my sanctuary,” one protestor said, echoing the sentiments of many.

A crowd converged on Washington, D.C. carrying signs and banners that expressed their hostility to the mandate:

“Hell No, Signals Gotta…