What A Day!

NEWS FLASH…. There’s late-breaking hot news about our youngest son, Donald, at the bottom of this posting.

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Up at 4 a.m. Wednesday to post yesterday’s diary entry and write a couple of e-mails to my e-friends in Russia. I feel guilty that my letters were harsh. I’ve thought for days and days about how to respond. But gentle does not seem to have helped their situation. I would not have butted in at all but they approached me and I wanted to advise them as best I’m able.

Those e-mails started my day as a downer.

My friend Barbara White treated me to breakfast at Dave’s Diner. In talking with the waitress Barbara said that the medicine is working so well because of the prayers of God’s people. When her cancer was first diagnosed, her blood markers read over 3,000; with only one chemo treatment left to go, those markers are now under 200.

Thanks be to God.

Barbara, who is a tad over 80, said, “John, now that it looks as though I’m going to live a while longer, I need to decide what the Lord wants me to do with the rest of my life”.

No one is too young or too old to think about God’s will.

We talked about her writing other books (her four Along The Way books are at www.bluefishbooks.info ). Or continuing her painting. Or leading retreats and giving lectures

We even talked about her going to Africa to help a missionary couple she has long supported. –why not? Corry Ten Boom was about Barbara’s age when she started out.

We went back to my house and sat in the back garden talking.

We concluded that when you do not know the will of God, you should do the closest thing to it that you do know.

When you do not know the will of God, sometimes it is the will of God that you not know.

When I asked about the seeming absence of God in tough times and the silence of God when we feel we need to hear Him most, Barbara reminded me of how things are in a class room:

The teacher instructs before an exam, and may critique the material afterwards…

But the teacher never talks during the test.

As Barbara left my house, a neighbor walked over to tell me about a police raid in our block last night with six patrol cars and a helicopter overhead—Ever alert as a member of our Neighborhood Watch, I had not noticed a thing. Missed the excitement altogether.

Another neighbor joined us to tell us about Bubba—God bless him. He had an attack last night and stopped breathing for about 20 minutes. He’s on life support and his many children are gathering to decide whether or not to turn off the machines.

Damn!

I hate that.

The old reprobate was my friend.

Remember the time Bubba and Dolly and I conquered technology with that cell phone? I still laugh about that.

Ours is a strange friendship. I’m a writer and my world revolves around books and reading and writing; Bubba can neither read nor write. But for some strange reason we hit it off and he stops by to talk fairly often. I find it difficult to carry on a conversation with a person who does not read, so I mostly listen and prompt him with questions. We both enjoy our talks.

In the year 2006, I wrote about Bubba and Dolly, his wife, in my February 7^th post (200 Minutes), and about Dolly’s death in my June 27^th posting (A Pain In The Neck and Listen To Your Heart) in my blog archives.

As my neighbors left, an air conditioning man came in to give me an estimate. He chatted happily about heat panels, kilowatts and spines—things every real man ought to know.

I’m an A/C expert too.

I can tell hot from cold.

And I know part of the thingy is inside the wall, and part of it is outside in the yard.

Sometimes an 18-inch grater snake coils up underneath the part outside—Ha! I’ll bet the A/C expert didn’t know that. But, if we go with his company, he may find out.

By the time the A/C man left, I knew I was not going to get any work done on the book manuscript today. Tried to read a library book but it just did not click. Did a few household chores. Ended up with a small odd block of time, so I killed it browsing porno sites for a while.

Ginny arrived home bearing a request that she and I (as a duty for our being on a Civilian Emergency Response Team) help out in a massive Swine Flu program to vaccinate every person in the Jacksonville metropolitan area—population one million plus.

Having seen the 1918 Spanish Lady graves in Evergreen Cemetery and having written about the 1888 Yellow Jack epidemic, I feel this vaccination project may be an important investment of our energies. Not sure about that, I’ll ask the Lord.

I cringe around groups of people. Just freeze up and shrink.

I think I’d be really good with crowd control—“Alright, you sickies, line up. Anybody steps out of line, I’ll cough on ‘em!”

Loving Christian service is my forte.

Ginny has this huge, enormous, big, massive, thick report she’s preparing for auditors at her office. I advised her to submit it “As Is” with a yellow post-it note on the front cover saying, “I coughed on this report”.

That way the auditors will rubber stamp the report without opening it so she does not have to worry about checking page after page after page of numbers.

Seriously, yesterday a friend who works in a major area hospital told me that she has three Swine Flu—shouldn’t we call this thing Porky?—cases in her intensive care unit. All three are in bad shape and she expects one to die today.

The State of Florida maintains a Weekly Swine Flu Surveillance Report at http://www.doh.state.fl.us/Disease_ctrl/epi/swineflu/Reports/reports.htm#map1; there were seven flu deaths in Jacksonville during August, and 22 down in Dade County.

This is just getting started.

Ginny and I are not sure how we can help in the Porky vaccination program, or if we’re so feeble that we’d just be in the way. God knows.

After dinner, we drove to the grocery story.

I felt so peopled out that I sought solitude in a little park area with benches near the front door, while Ginny shopped. I felt I needed to be alone and quiet for a time to smoke a pipe and recharge my batteries.

Along came nine church people—with cupcakes.

They settled in.

A young man, Lenny, sat on my bench and explained they were on a prayer walk through the neighborhood. He enthusiastically told me about their new congregation, which only formed recently. He graciously invited me to attend their services and worship with them. And he asked me questions about my own background and beliefs. And he listened courteously as I floundered around trying to justify myself.

Their church is called the Riverstone Community Church and they meet in the Five-Points Theatre at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. Their website is at http://riverstonecommunitychurch.org/index.html .

I joined them in open air prayer until Ginny, having finished shopping, rescued me.

I know nothing at all about their church services…

But their cupcakes were sure good.

Got home. Unloaded groceries. Began working. Phone rang—Donald will not be able to come over tomorrow to help me through that Google Books Partners Program; he promises to come Friday. I’m stymied without his help.

However….

NEWS FLASH: This Just In…

My Son, The TV Preacher…

Donald just told me that he’s launched a new video website called Morning Seminary.

When I hung up the phone, I watched it.

It’s a hoot!

First thing when he gets up, he staggers out and talks about the Lord before he’s even had morning coffee…Er, Donald, that is. The Lord has already had His. So, half-asleep, my son explains points of theology that he’s been thinking about.

This is great.

My books partnership on Google can wait. Who reads that stuff anyhow?; Donald’s doing something much more important.

Please go over to Donald’s You-Tube site at http://www.youtube.com/user/dzcowart and leave him a wake-up call comment.

Anyhow, Good night from Donald’s dad.

Two more A/C guys are scheduled to come here to my house tomorrow…I’m worn out…Maybe one of them will see the snake.