We don't get to choose our ancestors, but, we can choose the life God has for us.

Family heritage. It comes up in the conversation from time to time. Our youngest, Rodney, and I spent quite a bit of time doing research on our families 10 or more years ago. We dug up a lot of stuff. We had many blanks to fill in but the people who could help us with doing so were not interested in waking up the sleeping dogs, as in, "let the sleeping dogs lie." I paid for some of the ancestry type subscription services and we milked them for as much as we could. Today is Friday, March 13, 2020, and I can announce the truth about what we don't know. There are still a lot of blank spaces, especially in view of there being so many undiscovered explanations. Here is an example. My dad's dad, Will Cuffie, served in WWI. He was a farmer. He and my dad's mom busted up and it appears he never saw his children again. Some I talked to conjectured how he must have abandoned his family. I talked forth and back via email to a granddaughter of Will Cuffie's sister. Her mom knew Uncle Will and they reported how that he lived every day bereaving the loss of his children. They also reported he was one of the finest people around. Here's the interesting part. Where his children lived and grew up was not that far from where he resided, less than 3 hours by car. There were dozens of mysteries like that one. Some say it wasn't meant for us to know about these things. So far they are right. Duh! Based on what little I know about the extremely difficult lives of my dad and his siblings growing up, it does cause one to wonder. Until I know more, it will continue not being meant for me to know.

Flashback Friday from March 13, 2007: I passed my Louisiana driver’s license test in 1961 at age 15, barely. The fellow who administered the test had to be close to 100 years old or at least that’s the way I remember him. He was very abrupt and had this scowl on his face like he was just looking for any reason at all to keep me from getting my license. (I believe he had one of those pocket protectors before we knew they were for nerds.) We got off to a pretty rough start. The car I was using to take the test was parked out in front of his office. After passing the written test, we came out, he checked out the car, and then he gave me the okay to begin the test. I was very nervous and once under the steering wheel, he proceeded to lecture me about all the ills of teenaged drivers. After what seemed like hours, he indicated we should drive. I pulled out but he immediately yelled for me to stop and pull over. As it turned out, he said I was parked close to a stop sign and that I should have pulled up a few inches and stopped again. After another lecture, we continued and somehow by the grace of God he acquiesced and signed off on my test.

I am running a wee bit later than my usual startup time this morning. There are reasons but when it comes down to it, one excuse is about as good as another. I was going to say I had a banana in the refrigerator but that would not have been accurate since I think we are out of bananas. At any rate, we all are trying to make sense of the information being shared with us concerning this growing virus situation. Folks are wondering about things they have planned, we included. We are in the circle of wait and see at the moment and while we do not want to be a part of the panic kneejerk way of responding, I do think we all have to make decisions based on the facts on the ground as best we know them. My concern for our nation has to do with the cascading impact on our ability to function without regard to the seriousness of the actual threat. I may use it too much but seeing I remember those people in that news film from years ago jumping off a building after the fire had been put out and it reminds us all of the power of out of control thinking. At the same time, we who are people of faith must look to God for our help. And, as our pastor recently said, "When it comes down to it, let's be real, heaven is not that bad of an option." We have been brought to where we are today. We are called to make a difference. We can join the handwringing crowd or we can demonstrate in whom we have believed. May God help us to show forth our faith in such a time as this. Amen. ....More later.