" There is no secret to a long marriage - it's hard work...It's serious business, and certainly not for cowards." ~ Ossie Davis, Actor, (1917-2005), married to Rudy Dee for 57 years.

Well hello there, my, it seems like we were doing this very recently, maybe like yesterday. But, today is a brand new day and another shot at getting on with the life God has given to us. This one happens to show up as Thursday, June 5, 2025. I used hello in my greeting and it reminded me of a fellow at our local assembly. He is now in his heavenly abode but back when he was here he would admonish me not say hello because hell is low and heaven is high, so, he would greet people with this: Heaven High! If the Lord agrees I will hit the 79 year mark in mid August. The wife just turned 78. Old people can be and often are funny, especially if they have been together for a long time. We have. My hearing is not what it once was. Hers is perhaps even a wee bit more not like it once was. Because of that we sometimes hear what we think they said. They actually have a name for the mishearing of phrases typically associated with song lyrics, they are called mondegreens. One example is how words get missed in the process. Up and at em might be heard as Up and Adam. I think you get my drift here. The wife's recliner is across the room from my recliner. (I think recliners are a required item once you pass the age of 60. Ours have the electric control to raise or lower and we even find ourselves being upset from not being able to move them when the electricity is off. How crazy is that?) At any rate, we do a fair amount of loud talking to each other, often repeating what we said, sometimes more than once, and, we can still miss it from time to time. So far, we mostly are able to laugh about it. And, it happens enough, so we end up laughing often. I do know I hear this one quite often, "Are you planning on wearing that?" Planning? Since I had it on, most likely I intended to wear it. Right? We do mislay our phones, glasses, and vehicle keys which occupies quite a bit of our time. I'm not going to say who loses these items the most but I will go as far as to mention it's not me. We hear this one a lot, "What did you say? Could you repeat that? Sorry, I didn't catch all of what you said." The cartoon has the couple in the porch swing and the old man says, "In the moonlight your teeth look just like pearls." The old lady angrily responds, "Who is Pearl and what were you doing with her in the moonlight?" This is just a sample of the meaning found in the Proverbs where we are admonished to rejoice with the wife of our youth. I'll just say it like this, around here, we do a fair amount of rejoicing as we grow older. Amen.

 

Talking to my eldest son about the internet outage and my response to it, he thought I was perhaps a little too harsh. He gave me this to chew on: He said at his stage in life he had decided to show grace. He will be 60 years old in October and he is now passing on his wisdom to me? I chuckled because my thoughts about it all had more to do with writing something than it did with any outlandish concerns over the service itself. Show grace? Hey, that is good advice and I was glad to hear him say it. Especially, if he is talking to other people. It's like the proverbial joke where those attending Church services tell the pastor they sure know a lot of people who needed to have been there to hear his sermon. Truth is, I am the other people who need to hear. But, in the case of my son, I will work with him so he can detect the difference between harshness and someone being facetious. I need to show grace? Well, I never! Just joking around. His point is well taken and I will make sure I pass it along to someone who needs to hear it. Maybe it will be the person who misplaces their stuff often. Maybe not. In fact, not even maybe not, just not! Y'all have yourselves a most wonderful rest of this steamy, hot, and humid day, (at least here in these parts). May God add His blessings as we all continue our journey of just passing through to our real home. Amen.

 

PS: The wife of my youth proofread today's edition and thought it was good except she believed the examples of who was the most hard of hearing and who lost stuff the most were the opposite of what I wrote. I offered to change it to something different but she said send it out because it does have some humor in it. I wanted to share this bit of information because I decided I should show grace.