Bruce’s Umbrella, Donald Duck, & My On-Line Diary

This last day of 2008 causes me to reevaluate my life, to recall why I keep this diary, and to remember Bruce’s umbrella and Donald Duck.

To start with, I remember Bruce’s umbrella!

O do I remember Bruce’s umbrella!

It was horrible!

As soon as I turned 11 years old, I joined Boy Scout Troop 36. To initiate me established members stripped my pants off and hung them from a lamp pole on Hendricks Avenue. I ignored busy traffic and hooting car horns to climb the pole and retrieve my pants.

From then on, I belonged.

My initiation shows what a rowdy bunch of ruffians we were, calling each other vile names and teasing each other unmercifully—except this once.

We were Scouts. We chopped down trees, explored caves, dug in fossil beds, explored ruins, built forts, passed around illicit copies of Argosy: The Men’s Magazine, and exchanged highly improbable information about how babies are made.

We were Scouts.

We were tough.

One drizzly Saturday morning we loaded our gear in the back of a stake truck and 30 of us began to pile aboard to go off on a camping trip. Laughing, catcalling, shoving we pushed for the best places at the front of the truck bed.

This kid named Bruce entered the fray seeking his place under a tarpaulin out of the rain.

A car pulled up in front of the Scout Hut.

Bruce’s mother got out and ran toward the truck waving a woman’s umbrella.

The lady back then was dressed like the female’s in a Desperate Housewives .tv show today. Tight skirt, low-cut, bouncing bodice, high spiked-heeled sandals, Bouffant hairdo (Is that what you call that sort of 1050s hair style?)

She was a sight.

We all looked.

She was yelling, “Brucie! Brucie, you forgot an umbrella”.

An umbrella on a Scout camping trip?

Bruce balked—he argued that nobody else in the troop carried an umbrella camping.

She insisted—he might get wet, catch cold.

From the bed of the truck, the rest of us watched the exchange.

She threatened not to let him go camping unless he carried that umbrella.

It was yellow.

It had flowers on it.

Bruce relented.

He climbed back on board the truck with the umbrella.

Not one boy—Not one—teased him.

None of us had ever heard the word mortification, but we knew its meaning. In our minds we every one pictured his own mother, and we all knew that kind of humiliation could happen to any boy.

There but for the grace of God is me with a yellow, flowered umbrella on a truckload of boys going camping to rough it in the woods.

We realized our common humanity.

We knew that happened to one, could happen to anybody.

So not one boy teased Bruce.

But I doubt if any of us ever forgot him.

Mortification. Humiliation. Universal experience. Things we share, or could share, in common. Bonds with humanity that we’d just as soon hide. Vulnerability. Transparency.

A saint once said, “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man…”

But we try to maintain our dignity—at least I do. I cringe at the thought of anyone seeing how weak I am especially when life forces me to carry a yellow flowered umbrella.

Pride punctured wounds deep.

Rather slip with a chain saw.

At least that’s manly… I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK!

That brings me to Donald Duck, an eminently successful corporate attorney I met as an adult when I was driving a tractor trailer over the road cross country. We met “by chance” at a one-time meeting in a church where neither one of had ever been before.

I wrote about our meeting back on May 31, 2007, This Couple Wanted My Bed, in my blog archives.

Donald Duck, successful attorney, and John Cowart, blue-collar truck driver, had nothing in common except that on some level each of us wanted to follow Christ whole-heartedly. On that basis we hit it off as fast friends.

We often talked about commitment, about how Jesus is worthy of our devotion because of His love for us, because of His death for us on the cross, because He rose from death, and because He sends His Spirit to be active in this present world through everyday ordinary people like you and me.

Don told me his insight that I am a proud man. He told me that if I chose I could be a passable Christian, attending church, dropping a little tithe in the plate, refraining from overt noxious sin—but that for me such a path would be hypocrisy.

Don said that if I chose to really follow Jesus, I would need to become vulnerable and transparent and honest. He said that I would not be an example of a Christian, but more of a public display, like when you visit an archaeological site and walk through the ruins seeing how primitives coped and made things fit.

On some shallow level, without realizing what I’m getting into, I chose to follow.

At a safe distance.

That brings me to this on-line diary.

For years I’ve kept a diary recording my day to day acting out of my own Christian life. Of course I try to put my best foot forward and I try to avoid looking like too much of an ass.

But at the same time I try to avoid hypocrisy. I do not record every time I browse for naked ladies on the internet; I do not tell all my resentments or the grudges I’ve held for years and years—but I mention enough such squalor to give a taste of my sins, temptations and struggles. I try to reveal and acknowledge my sins but not to wallow.

By the same token, I try not to record all my virtues and good deeds, but I try to give a taste of those also. Like the old Puritan teacher told theology students, “Be thou not overly pious”. I try not to relish and exalt in how nice I am.

For instance, yesterday I helped my son pick up surplus bread from a bakery and delivery it to a shelter for the homeless (how virtuous of me); But, I opened a package, took out the best pastry, and ate it myself (stole food right out of the mouths of the poor, What a creep). Those are the two sides of me my diary reveals.

My writing lets readers stroll through the ruins.

My goal in all this is to present a transparent picture of what the Christian life is like for one guy.

In seeing what it’s like for me, maybe something will strike a cord, maybe someone will identify, maybe some reader will recognize their own heart-yearning…

Maybe someday some reader will see through my transparency and vulnerability and realize— Hey! This is real. This rings true. Jesus is indeed the Christ, Son of the Living God, the Savior.

I want readers to see through murky me to catch a vision of Him…

And to see Him as worthy.

TEST POSTING With Graphic

Since Christmas and the phone line trouble, my computer went wonkie on me and I have not been able to post.
Donald repaired it today.
So this is a test posting with a cool computer graphic.
My real post is dated December 29th.

Preview Of Coming Attractions

Film reviewers attribute the worst movies ever made to Hollywood personality Ed Wood.

Mr. Wood stands in danger of loosing his number one spot.

My son Donald and I plan to make several movies over the next few months. Our films are sure to become classics.

After all, I’m noted for my refined taste in movies.

For instance, I rank among my personal number one box office favorites The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra, a film in which Ranger Brad says, “ Seriously, folks, around these parts we’re serious about taking horrible mutilations seriously”.

And the space aliens conquer the world using house painters’ caulking guns as props. (That solved some budget problems).

According to my cinematic taste, another prime example of the film maker’s art should attract the attention of other refined, cultured viewers with discriminating tastes.

It’s called Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter.

In the opening scenes of this fictional cinematic event, vampires attack lesbians in the city. Church leaders appeal to the Savior of the world for help. Jesus, who’s been studying karate before his second advent, comes out of retirement to battle the vampires. He whisks along city streets on his skateboard healing the sick, blind and crippled as he goes. A gang of 36 atheists attack, and Jesus karateizes the lot. But then, vampires beat him up and leave him bleeding in the gutter. A priest passes by on the other side, a cop passes by, but the Good Transvestite picks him up and nurses him to health. Then Jesus teams up with a professional wrestler and they whack vampires right and left in an auto junk yard and –

Oh yes, have I mentioned that this movie is a musical?

No account of my refined taste in cinema is complete without mention of Lair Of The White Worm. In this film an evil giant snake attacks the village demanding an offering. The townsmen decide to sacrifice Alice because, “She the closest thing to a virgin we’ve got in this village”. But the intrepid Scottish hero saves Alice and the village by thwarting the evil serpent by the simple ploy of going into the snake’s lair with a mongoose hidden under his kilt.

These are three of my top movie picks, these films make the early Godzilla movies look like cinema!

So naturally, the films Donald and I plan to make may rank right up there with these other film classics. Here’s a photo of Donald as cameraman/director:

Not really.

Seriously, our films lack such luster; they have different roots.

For several years back in the mid 1970s I taught Bible lessons at a sort of half-way house for drug addicts. A judge had given convicted residents the choice of going to jail or staying at the shelter and one requirement of living there was they had to attend my bible classes.

Talk about a hostile audience!

To win their attention, I developed various odd gimmicks to both amuse and instruct. They worked pretty well. Although in one class, while I illustrated a Bible lesson with poster paints, one guy went to sleep. I continued my talk as I crept out into the audience and painted his nose red. The class thought that was a hoot.

Years later, I taught these same lessons at a skid-row mission where the administration made the men sit through one of my Bible classes before they could have supper.

Many resented this requirement so I felt it necessary to do my best to win their attention and sympathy.

I felt I was battling for men’s very souls there because almost every week one or two of the down and out guys would have died between meetings.

So, although I fooled around and joked a lot to gain attention and interest, I trembled at the seriousness of what I was doing.

Then, once after a couple of years, the pastor of one of Jacksonville’s society churches happened to visit our house while I was rigging one of my demonstrations for the mission. The project intrigued him and he asked me to make a presentation to his Pastor’s Bible Class, a group made up of physicians, attorneys, architects, bankers, etc.

After praying about it, I felt that if a lesson was good enough for the guys at the mission—if I were giving them my best—then that same lesson was good enough for the society class. So I taught the exact same lesson both places that week.

The class proved popular enough that the pastor asked me to take over, and I taught that way for several years.

Incidentally, I was not exactly a high society person myself; as I was teaching that class on Sundays, during the week I worked as a janitor.

A strange situation.

Anyhow, because my son Donald got this bug about making video films for the internet, his idea is to use me teaching some of these same lessons with the same gimmicks and my tasteful jokes.

He wants me to star in his films.

Seriously folks, he’s serious about making serious religious-type films for a serious viewership…

What am I to do?

I can’t find my caulk gun!

Know where I can buy a mongoose cheap?

Repent, Sinner! Repent! The Day Of The Lord Is At Hand!

A Baby's Clothes

Polly caught a frog.

That’s the way she worded it.

It’s an occupational hazard for prostitutes.

Polly worked the same truck terminal where I worked back when I drove a tractor trailer 40 years ago.

I met her late one night in the men’s shower room. Both of us were naked.

Years later, I wrote a newspaper column about meeting The Girl In My Shower ; a copy of the article can be found at:
http://www.cowart.info/Rabid%20Fun%20columns/Girl%20in%20shower/Girl%20in%20shower.htm .

Polly asked Jesus into her heart that night—But the process of working out exactly what that meant in her life did not happen in an instant. For most of us, it doesn’t.

Salvation, becoming a Christian, is not all about solving our problems and getting our life all straight. No, Salvation is all about Jesus, about acknowledging His Lordship and giving Him His rightful and proper place.

Any happiness that relationship brings is a by-product, not the reason, of honoring Christ as Savior. So Polly’s life didn’t turn rosy the second she accepted Christ.

As I crossed country, whenever I’d pass through her town every couple of months, she’d update me on how her life was going. I think she felt relieved to able to share a cup of coffee or meal and chat with a male who was not a potential customer.

One day in the mechanic shop, she told me that she’d “caught a frog” from somebody or the other. She was pregnant and her man was upset about it, but she’d decided to have the baby anyhow.

(Now, please fellow Christians, don’t throw rocks at me, but I’m not at all sure that sometimes an abortion is not the best thing for all concerned, including the baby—and no, I do not care to discuss it.)

Anyhow, my views on the subject didn’t matter because the prostitute had already decided to have the baby before she even told me about it.

Ginny and I were expecting our own first child by then, and when I told her about Polly, Ginny knitted a little cap, booties and baby clothes for the prostitute’s soon-to-be-born baby. Not knowing whether Polly’s baby would be a girl or boy, Ginny knitted the tiny outfit out of pastel green yarn with yellow trim.

Ginny’s kind gift touched Polly.

Polly delivered a little girl child a few days before that Christmas that year. She told me that her man raped her as soon as she got home from the hospital. It hurt, she said, but she was glad he did it because she’d been scared he wouldn’t like her or find her attractive after she had the baby.

What a prince.

Like many abused women, Polly feared him but also feared being without him. The thought that he would leave her alone in the world terrified her. She could see no way to get along without him as her “protector”.

Although Polly was a Christian and, on a deep level wanted to extricate herself from street life at the truck terminal, she would never make a Bible scholar.

But, she was so proud of her newborn daughter.

“John,” she said, “I named her Merry. You know, after Merry Christmas, the mother of Jesus”.

Yes, she thought the two words were the same.

I saw no reason to correct her.

Months later when I left the road, I lost contact with Polly.

This time of year, when I hear people wish “Merry Christmas” I always think of Polly and Merry, and I wonder what happened to them.

May God bless them whatever.

If I make it there myself, I expect to see Polly again in Heaven. Not all of us who come to Jesus need to know all the right words, just the right “Man”.

Merry Christmas.

For Service, Punch Option 84. Let Me Repeat That In Spanish...

Here it is two days before Christmas and we’ve spent the last six days trying to reach AT&T to get our telephone working again. Their shabby system causes us to investigate dropping AT&T altogether and going with a rival cell phone company.

My dealing with AT&T brings to mind this cartoon:

On the up side, Ginny and I finally put up our outdoor Christmas display. Smaller than usual, but we got it up in time for Luminary Night. Sunday night we walked for three hours enjoying lights and decorated homes.

Here’s a photo of Ginny adjusting our little display

Being anchored to the house for six days waiting for the telephone repair man to show up has put a crimp in my Christmas activities. And while I practice hostage negotiations with the phone company, I also struggle with the problem of where my own work should go from here.

Talked with my friend Barbara White at Dave’s Diner yesterday about knowing the will of God. Barbara pointed out that I do not have to know what to do next, I just have to decide what to do next.

$9,999.00

Suppose that someone gave you a gift of $9,999.00.

You would not have to pay income taxes on that gift. It is a free gift and not earned income.

OK, suppose some gave me a gift of $9,999.00, I would not have to pay income tax, Ginny—she’s an accountant—says the tax has already been paid by the giver. The recipient enjoys the gift, tax free.

Unfortunately, no one gave me $9,999.00 for Christmas this year.

Instead, one of the kids presented me with this:

It is a lovely electric rat in a coffee mug.

When I lift my mug, the rat squeals and kicks his feet and thrashes his tail trying to back out of the mug.

Hey, it’s the thought that counts.

Right?

At Eve’s party the other night, our kids showered many such lavish gifts on us. (Eve tells about her shindig on her blog today at http://www.eveyq.blogspot.com/ ).

A lady in a parking lot yelled something that got me to thinking more about gifts yesterday afternoon when Ginny and I stopped at a department store to buy some batteries.

As we approached the store, we passed a family coming out into the parking lot. A sullen teenager lagged behind his harried mother. The irate woman shrieked at him, “That’s what you’re getting! You asked for three presents, and you’re getting three damn presents”!!!

Nothing like family togetherness for the holidays.

A gift originates with the giver.

What that gift is comes at the giver’s discretion.

The recipient is just that, a recipient. He can be grateful for the gift, regard it with indifference, or reject it according to his nature.

Our kids gave Ginny a delightful gift. Here’s a photo:

My photo can not do it justice. It’s about a foot long and all those things dangling from the dorsal fin are bells that tinkle when you move it.

Ginny is the first on our block to own one.

She’s the envy of all who see it.

This morning Ginny woke at 4 a.m. with me this morning and we talked about taxes. She says the gift limit has been raised to twenty thousand dollars. You can receive that much without having to pay income tax on it.

The gift comes free because you have not earned it; the giver paid for it before you even knew he was giving it to you.

If you work and earn, then the person who hands you $9,999.00 is merely paying a debt. That is not a gift; you’ve earned the cash and you have the bragging rights to how worthy you are to get such a sum.

It’s only a gift if you have done nothing to deserve it.

See where I’m going with this?

St. Paul said, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast”.

Salvation comes tax-free. Christ, the giver, has already paid everything that needed paying. He paid for it on the cross.

We can accept His gift with gratitude, reject it with resentment as not something we really wanted, or ignore it with indifference—to our peril.

Like the old hymn says, “Jesus paid it all; All to Him I owe”.

It’s a good thing gifts come free.

Otherwise, just think of all the tax I’d have to pay on my Squealing Rat In A Mug. Or what Ginny would owe on her tinkling, flowered, yellow and purple fish.

Some gifts are priceless.

Examining My Motives As A Writer

This Christmas tide, while the rest of the nation freezes under sub-zero blizzards and crippling ice storms, here in 80-degree sunny Florida, (I like to rub that in to poor yankees) I dabble at a systematic program that leads to reading through the Bible in a year.

I want to talk about that, but first let me say that last night Eve and Mark hosted a riotous combination birthday and Christmas celebration at their home.

Because of travel plans and folks wanting to spend Christmas with their spouses’ families, the Cowarts exchanged jokes, jabs and gifts last night. It was a hoot! Poor Clint, our newest, must wonder what he’s gotten into by falling for Patricia. He’s got a treasure he didn’t recon on the family being thrown into the bargain.

We played with candy rats (lone story of an odd Cowart holiday tradition. We teased Mark about mistaken a perfectly good manatee for a walrus! (Mark hails from up north). We prayed, feasted, read Scripture and told bizarre, embarrassing stories about each other, and exchanged even more bizarre gifts (another Cowart tradition).

For our Christmas devotions I read the Ten Commandments and short passages from three of the Gospels. And to reinforce the seriousness of the gathering, I told about this cartoon:

Terri didn’t get the joke—which made it all the funnier for the rest of us.

Now, back to my original intention of reading day by day through the Bible in a year.

I’m not making it.

I miss a lot of days, but reading all the way the whole thing again remains my goal.

Sometimes, that practice creates a posterior pain

For instance, Friday’s reading brought me to Peter’s First Letter, Chapter 2, where I read:

For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

Now the passage primarily reveals Christ, telling what He did and our relationship to Him. I believe this passage is literally true. Every phrase pictures the situation accurately. But one phrase in particular captured my attention: An example that ye should follow His steps.

Years ago I read Charles Sheldon’s popular novel titled In His Steps. And yes, I know it advocates a watered-down, liberal Christianity and a social gospel; (O Horrors!) but it’s still a cool, thought-provoking book.

Here, I’ve scanned in a brief passage from that book which I ran across again recently; it’s about Jasper Chase, a writer:

Money and fame as a writer.

All this gives me something to think about.

I hate examining my own motives!

See where Bible reading gets you?

I’ve got to stop reading such stuff.

It messes with my head and gives me another (well-deserved) posterior pain.

I like the parts where Peter talks about how vile, nasty sinners are going to get their comeuppance—those passages make for easier reading.

The thing is, when reading the Bible, you can never tell which phrase is going to stick. Alive, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable—that’s God’s written word.

As Peter says, “Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”.

Theologian term the process of the Holy Spirit’s working on the writers inspiration. It means God-breathed.

Reading Scripture carries that same sort of supernatural dynamic.

At His discretion, the Holy Spirit sometimes causes certain phrases to jump out at the reader. Theologians term this process illumination, which means to light up.

Sometimes I wish the ideas of Scripture did not light up for me…

Say, I wonder what’s on tv this evening?

An Annual Ritual

Thursday I visited my parents' grave.

Hide & Seek At Christmas

Happens every Christmas.

I heard about it on the radio this morning as I transcribed more pages of that old hand-written diary I’ve been working on.

Once again vandals have been stealing images of the baby Jesus out of nativity scenes in front of churches and homes.

Nothing new there.

Pathetic losers.

Somebody needs to buy these folks a Gameboy or something.

What is new, to me at least, is that some security firms now hide GPS devices inside the images so authorities can locate the stolen figures in a hurry.

An Associated Press news bulletin tells all about it; the bulletin can be read at http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=&q=stolen+jesus%2C+gps&btnG=Search+News

Some folks train security cameras on their Christmas displays to identify thieves, as well as attaching GPS locators to track down the missing Jesus.

One church chained jesus to a heavy cinder block, but thieves made off with the whole rig.

I find all this … I suppose amusing is the word I want. But it borders on hilarious.

A jesus that can be stolen is not the God I worship.

He’s too big to lift for one thing.

I have no use for a GPS to find Him.

Indeed, our roles are reversed.

If anyone is lost, it’s us, not Him. The first thing God called to Adam after the fall was, “Where art thou?”

Adam and Eve were hiding in the bushes from God.

We, their descendents, do the same thing.

Only the bushes are different.

We hide.

God seeks.

Now, manger figures are just that, figures. Someone carved or molded them out of plastic, wood, plaster, stone, papier-mâché—even pressed tin like the ones I showed in the video last week.

These things rust, get chipped, get weatherworn, misplaced, stolen. They perish in the using. I suspect that for most Christians they rank more as decorations than as representations of Christ the Lord.

Even if they are meant as representations, they are poor ones.

The Scripture tells us that God who came to earth to be born in a stable, held the universe together while He was becoming a baby. He later said, “All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth…” While solders hammered nails into His hands, He gave their arms the strength to swing the hammer. And the Lord of Life rose from death under His own power.

The Scripture says, “In Him we live and move and have our very being”.

He can not be lost, He holds all creation in the palm of His nail-scared hand.

And here is the wonder—the Mighty God, the Lord of Life, the Bright and Morning Star, the King of Kings, the Alpha and Omega, the Creator and Sustainer of all—Jesus seeks us.

We can’t hide from Him. I have this mental picture of kids playing Hide and Seek with Dad, they crouch behind the cellar door, giggling that Daddy can’t see them.

But he can.

God can too.

He knows where we’re hiding.

As far as God is concerned, everyone of us has a GPS stapled to our ass.

Every hair on our heads is numbered by Him who calls every star by name, who sees every fallen sparrow, who sees every tear to well up in our eyes, who heals the broken in heart.

And His call to us now is still the same as it was at the world’s beginning to sinners in the Garden of Eden:

Where art thou?

Come Home.

Come Home.

Come in free.

I Need A Scorecard

In a different vein, Patricia, our youngest daughter, the one studying to be a phlebotomist (great pun: vein/phlebotomist—I’m so clever!) came home yesterday.

She brought her friend(fiancé ?) Clint (his mother is a long-time Dirty Harry fan) to meet us; from Jacksonville they plan to drive to a cabin in the mountains for Christmas with his parents so Patricia can meet them for the first time.

Anyhow, I’d spent part of the day cleaning house getting ready for their arrival… Then, Jennifer, our eldest daughter, called saying that she’d invited Eve, our middle daughter, and they’d all meet me and Ginny at a Chinese restaurant.

Ginny and I got there first and waited in the parking lot.

The kids called on a cell phone to tell us they were at a nearby duck pond in the park and would meet us in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, this car pulls up with a young couple inside. The man got out, approached me, extended his hand and said, “How are you doing, Sir?”

I had no idea who this stranger was.

The young lady got out of the car.

I had no idea who she was either.

Of course, the couple was Clint and Patricia. I did not recognize either one at first (she has a new hair color and style).

I felt so embarrassed.

In the New England of the 1600s, people considered gross mental confusion a sign of being bewitched (Recently, I’ve been reading a book about psych/sociological elements in colonial witchcraft trials).

Must be that I’m being hag-ridden… or just plain going nuts.

Anyhow, we enjoyed a nice dinner with all those kids—whoever they were.

Ginny’s Hearty Pre-Christmas Stew

When we visited yard sales over the summer, Ginny bought used or out-of-date pillar candles for next to nothing; yesterday, she surrounded these with glass balls we scrounged from the trash to decorate our table with this centerpiece which cost less than $3.

Clever girl.

As Christmas approaches, so do a myriad of activities. More shopping, wrapping presents, phone ringing, church meetings, Luminary Night, birthdays, parties, house cleaning, decorating, visits from friends, charitable activities—we hardly have time to eat.

Problem solved.

Clever Ginny cooks up a huge pot of her hearty Pre-Christmas Stew.

Theoretically, when pressed for time by all the goings on, we can eat on this delicious one-dish meal time and time again. All it needs is warming up and serving.

Here’s how she makes it:

First she buys a two or three pound beef roast and cuts it up into bite-sized chunks; She spoons some flour into a paper bag, drops the beef chunks in and shakes it up to coat them.

In her largest pot, she browns the meat in about a ¼ cup of oil.

Then she adds about four cups of water, a can of stewed tomatoes, four or five onions cut up into wedges, 6 or 7 bouillon cubes, a bay leaf, a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cumin, oregano, and a dot of garlic powder.

She brings this stuff to a boil then turns down the heat to let it simmer for about two hours.

Now, she adds a head of cabbage she’s cut up into wedges, several sliced carrots, and a couple of ears of corn.

She tops all this off with a can of mild green chili peppers.

She lets this stew cook until the cabbage, corn and carrots are soft.

Served with buttered toast, this meal sticks to your ribs on a cold day.

It’s supposed to serve eight and I’m told that it stays delicious for days and days and days for eating through out the busy days before Christmas.

I wouldn’t know—the two of us ate the whole pot over this past weekend!

Here’s the clipping from Ginny’s receipt book:

In other news:

Donald dropped in Sunday afternoon to discuss making further movies; he’s posted a description of technical details on his blog at http://www.rdex.net/blog/ .

More about our movie plans later.

A Note For The Kid In The Attic:

At a press conference in Baghdad where President Bush spoke, some little person threw his shoe at the President of the United States.

The President ducked.

Secret Service agents did not spray the whole room with machine guns; the U.S. Air Force did not A-Bomb the city; Cruise missiles did not obliterate the country.

The President ducked.

The arab reporter was ejected from the conference.

What would have happened to that same roomful of arab reporters if one of them ever had thrown a shoe at Saddam Hussein?

Our President soft-pedaled the incident as an expression of free speech!

Petty little insignificant people seek revenge; the great and mighty pass over insults.

I’m not particularly a Bush supporter, but I’m impressed in that he teaches me that the king does not swat flies.

Forbearance.

Maybe that’s why God puts up with so much that we do.