rambling rosemarie

Have you ever heard of the term 'fire insurance' being used to describe some one's shallow faith? The idea being, of course, that the person professing faith just wants to stay out of hell while living any way they please here and now. I had one person tell me outright that they wanted to get into heaven with his shirt tails smoking and smelling of sulphur. I can't fault him for his honesty but his ideas on what it means to be a Christian aren't worth the powder it would take to blow them to... well.. you know. It hasn't been fashionable to talk about hell for a while now. Folks want a kind and benevolent God who wouldn't dream of sending anyone there if it exists. There are a lot of people who profess faith in God and deny hell at the same time. Those who do believe in hell will describe it as being separated from God. I have heard the argument and it sounds plausible, unless you actually read your bible. Hell isn't being separated from God, it ...

There are moments that change everything. We amble along in our lives and suddenly our course is forever altered. Moments can be much anticipated as when a child is born, or arise spontaneously when a seemingly inconcequential decision made. One little choice propels us in a new direction. It doesn't even have to be our choice. Someone else's choice to lie or cheat may rob us of the future we hoped for or the security we think we need. It happens suddenly and without our permission. Moments that cause unspeakable joy elevate us above our greatest hopes or just as quickly, our expectations become little more than premeditated disappointments. There are moments of my life I remember with pain, wonder and amazement. That's what life is about; moments that sneak up and hold you captive. Moments that force you to acknowledge the sure bliss, joy, terror and interminable grief that occurs in a blink of an eye, the utterance of a syllable or the touch of a hand. If you h...

Is it really just a coincidence when on a random day like today the majority of people calling your place of work are grumpy or downright hateful? I conferred with two coworkers today about the types of calls and callers we received and we all agree that something was just plain wrong with most of the folks we talked to. The question remains, how do you account for that phenomenon? If it was only my impression I would think my opinion was being skewed by my own grumpiness. A random sampling says it's not me though. Besides, I am in a perfectly lovely mood. If I were Frank Peretti I would blame it on demons. If I were a math nerd I would calculate the statistical probabilities. If I were paranoid I would think that every person with a bad attitude was given my extension by some malevolent person or being. Truly, I do not have a clue how to rationalize days where people seem to be crazy. Besides, it seems sorta silly to rationalize craziness. There are a lot of things that see...

Today I am feeling both pensive and melancholy. I didn't set out to combine these two states of being. I just went out into the garden to begin stripping out the ravages of neglect and winter and suddenly found myself thinking about the way things used to be and how I long for some of those things to return. When the girls were young we all lived in a 100 year old farm house and had 10 acres for things like horses, sheep and gardens. I miss living there. I didn't know I would miss the sound of the pheasants calling or the raspy bark of the foxes who were hoping to eat them. How could I know then that I would miss the smell of tar weed growing in the pasture, especially when it can be a real problem for you when your horses eat it. I miss seeing my horse parked under the ancient pear trees and the old Gravenstein apple tree, in my mind she looks as fat as a tick and she is munching windfall fruit. She used to do that until she looked rabid from all the foam and juice that esc...