Follow through on that good idea

“I’m drawing a blank,” said the caption beneath the girl’s empty cartoon frame. She smiled up at me. “Funny, huh?”

I had to admit it was funny, but a cop-out, too.

“The assignment is to draw a cartoon: single frame with caption below, or four-frame strip with bubbled dialogue inside.”

What a great class, I thought as I strolled through the seventh-graders, reading over their shoulders, encouraging their creativity. As a substitute teacher I’ve seen just about everything, including an eighth grader launching a calculator across the room at her ex-boyfriend. He ducked and it shattered on the linoleum. It was the teacher’s calculator.

So comics were cake, as far as I was concerned. And a viable means of communication as well. Did I, myself, not turn first to the political cartoon in the daily newspaper? And what about my collection of B.C. comic strips? A lot can be said with stick figures and a witty remark.

A group of boys at one table came up with the idea of cereal killers and they snickered over murderous spoons and poisonous milk. They loved the play on words, or homophones as those in pedagogical circles call them, but one bemoaned the pun as too obvious.

“Someone else has probably already thought of it,” he said.

Yes, I told him. There are very few truly unique ideas. Most of what we cook up has already been contemplated by someone else.

“There are a lot of ideas, but not everyone acts on them,” I said. “Do something about it. Be different.”

I once heard a literary agent tell a group of aspiring writers that ideas were a dime a dozen. (The worn cliché surprised and disappointed me, but then again, we are all susceptible on the spur of the moment.)

“Write the book,” she said. “Don’t just send me a paragraph with a great idea; write the book.”

In other words, act on it. Follow through. Be different. And so I continue to pound away at my keyboard when I’m not teaching, wrapping bone and sinew and muscle around my ideas to make them into some thing, some thing that is more than just some idea.

What ideas do you have yet to act upon? Move on them. Take action! Follow through and create as others before you have done - those to whom we owe buckets of gratitude.

Consider the zipper. Microwave. Sticky notes. Toilet paper. All ideas that someone - probably many someones - had, that some one acted upon.

In the words of one of those seventh-grade, commercial-savvy cartoonists, “What’s in your head?”

The trees are raining

Diamonds wink
from every branch
and at the touch of sunlight,
spill
in liquid crystal.

I hear it
beneath blue morning sky
where moments before all
glistened
in silent frost.

Sun breath
melts the glaze
into a dripping,
singing
rain.

Just like my
cold
and hardened heart
beneath the breath
of God.

What is a Cowboy Christmas?

Mike’s old team roping rope on the door with a big red bow.

Boots by the fire instead of stockings.

Barbed-wire stars and rusty lanterns.

Pine bough perfume …

and a stable for the babe.

That’s right - God’s boy was born in a barn! He slept in the hay, wrapped in the warmth and comfort of livestock.

No palace for this King. No mansion or rampart or tower, but a stable where even one as simple as I could enter.

Have you noticed? He left the door wide open.

How else would the rest of us find our way home?

“…I am the door …” - Jesus (John 10:9)

What are you scratching for?

We live in an area called “Hardscrabble.” The name arrived with gold seekers and ranchers scrabbling to make a living off this pebbly patch of Rocky Mountain soil. That scrabble even shows between the sparse blades of winter grass in my side yard, where sparrows peck and scratch for God-knows-what.

I noticed them a few days ago, scraping at the barren, wind-blown ground, and in answer to their tireless quest I hung a new cedar bird feeder filled to the brim with wild bird food and sunflower seeds.

They ignored it.

No birds alighted the next day either, but I assured myself that like the hummingbirds homing in on their favorite nectar, so would the sparrows. Give them a day, I told myself. They will find it.

On the third day, there were still no birds at the feeder. From my window I watched them scratch the bare earth, heads down, flushing away when the dog bounded round the corner and into their foraging grounds.

And this morning they were at it again, busily scraping with their frail little feet, heads bent, pecking at imaginary seeds. I could almost hear their frantic thoughts: “There has to be something to eat in here somewhere!”

While above them hangs my feeder, still full to the brim of the choicest of fowl fare.

Will they never notice my care for them? I’ve had feeders at every home, and always the birds have found them and filled their gullets on my gifts.

It isn’t hard to see that I am much like these Hardscrabble sparrows, bent on my own way of providing what I need, unwilling to look up to another who waits close by, provision in hand. How often do I flit past my Bible, too busy to stop and feed on its life-giving words? How often do I pursue God-knows-what in my quest for sustenance?

And that is just the point: God knows what. He knows what I need and has provided it.

Why do I seek my own way instead of His?


“Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31).

Over the phone and through the mail

This Christmas finds our family spread across the country from Colorado to California. How can we continue our tradition of exchanging names when few of us will be together for the holidays?

We just won’t, I decided. It wouldn’t be the same. Besides, it would be wise in this economy to save the expense of giving and mailing. We’ll just pass this year.

No! said our eldest from across two mountain ranges. It’s being part of a family, he said, knowing that you’ve put thought and effort and love into the gifts chosen for your designated member.

“You choose,” he said over the telephone. “You and Dad put all our names in a basket, then choose for each of us and let us know.”

I thought about his words, his insistence that we should pursue the tradition regardless of position. So I wrote our names on slips of paper, eight in all including parents and children and spouses. We tossed them in a cup, picked out one at a time and sent the chosen names to each.

“I got you!,” texted one spouse to our daughter. “What do you want?” The excitement had spread already, unhindered by miles and mountain ranges.

It grew in my own spirit as I considered the one I’d chosen and what specific gift would touch that loved one’s heart. And I realized that distance had not mattered to the first Giver. How far away mankind was from the perfection and love of God! Yet He gave. Across the miles and mountains and galaxies, He sent a specifically selected and perfect gift to His chosen recipients.

Jesus: His love, our life. His living, our hope.

Merry miles-away Christmas to you this year. May you know His perfect Gift.

Heaven scent?

Roasting turkey, fresh pumpkin bread, and cinnamon-scented candles lace our home with a Thanksgiving Day perfume. It pleases me, soothes me, and fills me with a sense of well-being.

Ah - aromatherapy. Not a new concept. Asian cultures have used incense for millennia. And today we can choose fragrance in everything from coffee and candles to shampoo and detergent.

However, as a country wife I’ve had a few unpleasant aromas waft through my house, like organically generated fertilizer or the pungent perfume of a little black and white mammal - definitely the stronger of the two.

Skunks let you know when they’re in the vicinity. And they acquire a real attitude when startled or threatened - an attitude that lingers long after their departure.

Typically, I don’t think much about scent unless it pleases or displeases me; it’s the extremes that grab my attention.

Our lives have the same affect. Appreciation filters out and touches the people closest to us. It clings to those we encounter at home, at work or in rush hour traffic. So does discontent. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of those around us, and has a way of transferring from one person to the next. It sticks like skunk.

The ancient Hebrews worshipped God with aroma, giving burnt offerings as a show of thanksgiving. The Psalm writer said, “May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice” (Psalm 141:2 NIV).

“Outdoor barbecue,” declared a friend of mine after moving her family to a southern state. Comparing those altars of old to her summertime pastime, “Heaven must smell like Texas,” she said.

It all makes me wonder what I smell like today: attitude or gratitude?

Cs save

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