Storm Trooper Boot

Storm Trooper boot

♫ ♪ Da da da dee dee dum dee dee dum ♫ Dee dee dee dee dee dum dee dee dum ♪♫
Sing along while wearing your favorite Star Wars regalia!!

I kinda wonder where my blaster went...

This phase of the recovery involves this boot which has an air pocket on each side that can be pumped up a bit to provide comfort.

It is just another part of the overall recovery. I still can't do any weight bearing on this foot/ankle. Three more weeks before I even get to start PT, but the good news is, I can now give the stinky storm trooper foot a bath and shave my leg which is not ready for primetime.

In deference to the Star Wars attire I will be wearing ad nauseum, Thomas gently says since I am a storm trooper, my Death Star is my 17-year old ancient van... Lovely. NOT. Then, he comfortingly he says "Let's just hope no one shoots anything up the tail pipe..."

HEY!! I remember that scene and it didn't work out too well for the Storm Troopers and their boots!!!

I love you, too. PIGLET!

Kindly, Thomas offers to defend me in his Tie-fighter, but then I reminded him that the Tie-fighters didn't DEFEND the Death Star at all... not one tiny shot.

I am not comforted by his evil laughter and begin to wonder if HE isn't Darth Vader after all... remember, he did use the force to choke that one dude on the Death Star who was less than cooperative to Vader's plans.

My only question now is, if Thomas is a plant for the Empire, why does he help me at all? Then I realize that he is like the characters in his video games who can't quite decide whether they are good or bad yet. The color of their light sabers is kind of unsettled... like their choices.

So is Thomas a member of the 'rebel scum' and just yanking my chain about my temporary storm trooper status - like Luke appeared while rescuing Leia - or is he a mole from the Empire seeking to use the 4th of July fireworks to blow my van to kingdom come??

Hmmm. That MIGHT be kind of fun.

Wouldn't have anything to ride around Jared in, but man alive, that would be flippin' awesome to see the van go BOOOOOOO!!!

Yeah, I know.

Control yourself.

Whatever.

But should you happen to be looking out into the the northern skies near Thatch and Clem Roads and see a van fly through the skies, I promise it was an accident.

That's what I plan to tell the insurance company and I expect you ALL to back me up.

We now resume our theme music...
♫ ♪ Da da da dee dee dum dee dee dum ♫ Dee dee dee dee dee dum dee dee dum ♪♫ Da dee dee da dee dee da deedle dee dee dum dee dee dum dee dee dum dee dee deeeeeeeeeee ♫♪♫

Into Each Life A Little Rain Must Fall

Into each life a little rain must fall, or so the saying goes.

While there are many people who need the water for crops and livestock, I cannot help but feel a pang of sorrow in my heart for all of those people who two scant months ago watched all they had worked for blow and scatter to the whims of the tornadic winds.

How must they who have lost so very much feel as the relentless storms continue to soak whatever they might have left of the pieces of the lives that once were?

Yet the flip side of the coin is in behalf of those farmers and ranchers who put the literal food on the table for us all. When they suffer drought, we ALL suffer drought and we pay the price for foods brought from far away or in the hunger that might occur when you simply have to just say no to the prices.

The ditch in the front yard is fairly full and could offer a kayaker a pretty turbulent ride as the water races through on its downhill journey to flood the yard of the nice people down the street from us. They get flooded at almost every rainstorm.

When I was little, the summer rains seemed to be warm and inviting. Today's storms are dark, harsh and threatening. Is the difference simply age and perception, or has the natural world begun to turn away from us who care so little for one another and so very much for self alone?

I have no answers today, just lots of questions and concerns for those of my loved ones and friends scattered around through the rains.

The laundry whirls, the dryer hums and the rains pour.

Into each life...

Believer or Bigot?

Over the last while, I have truly been contemplating a very serious and heartfelt question: Is it bigoted to be a believer in God and to state emphatically that there are moral rights and moral wrongs? Further, is it bigoted to say that through the beliefs and teachings to which I submit myself willingly that there are some activities that are beyond the pale and to which I should not partake?

Is it bigoted to say that sin is sin even when it afflicts the comfortable spirit of mankind striving to separate themselves from God because they are disquieted by the distance their actions create between their soul and the Holy Spirit?

I DO believe that some things are sins. I also believe deeply in the process of repentance for those sins. Be they 'great' or 'small' in our mortal and flawed comprehension, God sees no stripe of sin that is not due the cleansing process of the Atoning blood of our Sinless Savior.

Jesus Christ didn't willingly die on the cross for us to have us just say "no, thanks, Lord, but I don't NEED you",  although, He KNEW that there would be some of us who would do just that. We do have agency to make moral choices and stand accountable for those decisions whether that accountability leads to reward or damnation.

Those who reject the opportunity to take our burdens and place them at the feet of the Savior and be cleansed are truly rejecting our only true foundation. Almost as if in our venal and rebellious hearts, we think that if we jam our thumb into His all seeing eye, we can remove the penalty for our selfish and prideful actions and blind Him to the reality of our sins. When we continue on doing what feels good to us personally without regard for Him who made us and for Him who has bought us with so very grave a price - His own blood - we remove our own opportunity for exaltation and a chance to return to His presence whole, clean and welcomed.

Being a believer in God and Jesus Christ, and unfortunately being well acquainted with the failings of mortality and the sins that are part of not only the learning curve, I am thankful that there ARE absolutes.

When we open ourselves up to the vain and foolish belief that 'everything' is acceptable in life and to God, we are in error and on the path to sin. That others consider this view bigoted and narrow is ALSO a form of sin. It's called PRIDE.

When people throw themselves wholeheartedly into what is a 'feel good' moment for them alone, they forget that there are other people, other needs, other wants and other desires beyond their own, and that leads to selfishness and both are a form of dishonesty before God.

The world would have us believe that those who are followers of God and Christ are delusional and backwards. They would have us believe that 'enlightened' people have no need of a god nor of the moral absolutes that my Judeo-Christian upbringing has offered to us. Though there are other religious belief systems that share elements of what I know to be true, that they lack Christ in their beliefs to me means that they are not totally in tune. And for some people, that statement makes me a bigot because I believe that Christ IS the Way, the Truth and the Life.

But the world is wrong.

Believing in God doesn't make me backward, unenlightened or ignorant. Nor does that belief make me a bigot. It is a privilege to believe in God and to serve Him. I feel honored to enter His holy house at every opportunity and to feel immersed in His healing Spirit and in the Balm of Gilead that binds up the wounds of life that have been inflicted from without and from within.

I KNOW that God lives because I have felt His presence moving and working in and through my life. I feel that presence as a vital, living force that acts as an anchor to my soul. That doesn't make me delusional. It makes me thankful and makes me feel grounded.

I truly feel sorry for people who elect to use their moral agency to distance themselves from God as if they don't need Him at all.

The understanding of our need doesn't make us less... through God we can be oh so infinitely more.

I'm not a bigot.

I AM a believer.

And for that, I am truly thankful.